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Politics, politics, politics (so long and thanks for all the fish)

Gutter Boy said:
Typically the only things that have been retained are bankers bonuses and stamp duty cuts for second home owners. So the bits for the rich :rolleyes:
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Everyone should be behind the policy to scrap the limit on bonuses…. Would you rather the government get 45% of it as income tax or 25% of it as corporation tax?
 
P.D. said:
It already exists - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salisbury_Convention

Anything not in the manifesto can be and is resisted.
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SC is the opposite of what I'm referring to. That's to stop the HoL torpedoing things they don't like.

I'm talking about something where there is cross bench scrutiny and power to act if a Govt significantly veers away from the manifesto/manifesto principles upon which it was elected.
Take Truss and KK's budget (I know this one wouldn't have got through the commons mechanically) - as soon as announced the opposition could table a motion of concern at which point it is escalated to the Lord's/similar for
I. Triage - quick turn around, is there a concern to consider
II. If yes, a more in depth analysis. If wrong doing is established - a GE.

It would be a mechanism to stop bad actors.
In the case of the Truss budget it may have stopped the market impact, or at least have reduced it's immediate impact.
Let's not forget, although Truss'budget is gone - the impact isn't. The money has been made. The huge damage has been done.

It shouldn't have happened. Our system let it happen. Tufton Street won't stop now - they've been empowered.
 
monkeybarry said:
As much as I hate Brexit, I don't think it broke it.
It did two things:
I. It removed the stabilisers (the EU - a political system and union flexible enough to work in the world I'll set out in II.)
II. It exposed how unfit and exploitable the UK system on it's own is under neo-liberalism and free market economics.

It's set up for one nation conservatism.

Since Thatcher we've had the good sides (relative to the recent position. IE The bad under Thatcher was still better than the end of the 70s).
Big growth and prosperity in the 80s under Thatcher.
Same under Blair and Brown.

All build on speculation and 2009 brought that crashing down.
Since then the factions that were used to the boom and benefiting from the inequality (the real Brexit argument - not migrants) have been trying to regain it and realised the only way to do that is to minimise others. Luckily for them they saw a politically vulnerable system - and one that had become lazy and not suitable to govern on its own - that they could infiltrate and exploit.

Building upon that and to answer your question Was Liz Truss chosen by the people?.....that answer is easily a dissertation!
My conclusion would be - yes. She was elected as an MP in a system where an MP can become PM under the rules of the party's; rules that are known at the point of election.

However, there is a huge question about how influenced and manipulated the electorate and the political system have been.

Was she chosen by the people - yes.
Was it democratic - yes.
Does it match what we think democracy should be? - Not in my opinion.
Is it fair, just and representative? - Not in my opinion.

A broken system.

Oddly, one of my closed friends is a PhD student in Political History and voted Brexit.
His reasoning - anarchy. He voted Brexit because the EU is undemocratic and so is the UK and he wants to see it fall apart and be reformed.
That outcome is the only upon which I would support Brexit.
We might just be living through it.
I'm still not convinced it's for the best.
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Some people in a small region (constituency) voted for Truss as MP, the nation certainly didn’t vote for her as PM. Let’s not get lost in technicalities, there was no manifesto and chance for the nation to endorse Truss’ vision or reject it.

When we say Brexit broke our political system, I mean we’ve had what 3 soon to be 4 PMs who’ve been elected by a tiny minuscule number of people, not the nation. That is democracy broken. Furthermore, they have an impossible job, largely because no one can deliver Brexit cake, meaning their position is untenable.

Brexit has been a form of inverse natural selection, firstly categorising MPs who have the least amount of aptitude for economics and politics, and then putting them in positions of power. As each has failed we’ve delved deeper into the dregs of the Tory party. The usual processes of selecting the best people was destroyed overnight and we ended up with Johnson (formally seen as a bit of a clown and never electable as PM) and the most incompetent bunch of Ministers heading up government. Brexit meant the cabinet was light on seasoned professional MPs, instead we had former back bench MP freaks like Reese-Mog et al running the show. These are people we’d never dreamt would get the keys to mechanisms of power. Suddenly they were running the country.
 
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Finney Is Back said:
Everyone should be behind the policy to scrap the limit on bonuses…. Would you rather the government get 45% of it as income tax or 25% of it as corporation tax?
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It's just immoral though, to increase inequalities so vastly. Particularly in a world where the public sector is collapsing because it can't recruit staff, because its salaries are fixed lower than amazon warehouse workers
 
monkeybarry said:
SC is the opposite of what I'm referring to. That's to stop the HoL torpedoing things they don't like.

I'm talking about something where there is cross bench scrutiny and power to act if a Govt significantly veers away from the manifesto/manifesto principles upon which it was elected.
Take Truss and KK's budget (I know this one wouldn't have got through the commons mechanically) - as soon as announced the opposition could table a motion of concern at which point it is escalated to the Lord's/similar for
I. Triage - quick turn around, is there a concern to consider
II. If yes, a more in depth analysis. If wrong doing is established - a GE.

It would be a mechanism to stop bad actors.
In the case of the Truss budget it may have stopped the market impact, or at least have reduced it's immediate impact.
Let's not forget, although Truss'budget is gone - the impact isn't. The money has been made. The huge damage has been done.

It shouldn't have happened. Our system let it happen. Tufton Street won't stop now - they've been empowered.
Click to expand...

Not really, weren't you arguing above that Truss being PM was democratic so therefore if it is and elected MPs also voted for a bill proposed by her would that not be democratic as well? Is anything being passed that isn't in the manifesto undemocratic? Where do you draw the line - you could say there's no mandate to fund Ukraine for example.
 
Listening to James O'Brien this morning. Couple of things:

1) no Brexit supporters call his show any more. Wonder why that is?
2) things are really bad for a lot of people, many who are working
 
SpurMeUp said:
Some people in a small region (constituency) voted for Truss as MP, the nation certainly didn’t vote for her as PM. Let’s not get lost in technicalities, there was no manifesto and chance for the nation to endorse Truss’ vision or reject it.

When we say Brexit broke our political system, I mean we’ve had what 3 soon to be 4 PMs who’ve been elected by a tiny minuscule number of people, not the nation. That is democracy broken. Furthermore, they have an impossible job, largely because no one can deliver Brexit cake, meaning their position is untenable.

Brexit has been a form of inverse natural selection, firstly categorising MPs who have the least amount of aptitude for economics and politics, and then putting them in positions of power. As each has failed we’ve delved deeper into the dregs of the Tory party. The usual processes of selecting the best people was destroyed overnight and we ended up with Johnson (formally seen as a bit of a clown and never electable as PM) and the most incompetent bunch of Ministers heading up government. Brexit meant the cabinet was light on seasoned professional MPs, instead we had former back bench MP freaks like Reese-Mog et al running the show. These are people we’d never dreamt would get the keys to mechanisms of power. Suddenly they were running the country.
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If this is a typo - it might be my favourite ever!
If this was deliberate, I want to kiss you!!

Re; Truss.
Our system is built upon technicalities, so we can't escape them.
Everyone has to accept that whomever they vote for could become PM. That's why it's important to pay attention!

That's also why I've laid out a desire for various mechanism's to stop the election of a PM on a manifesto/principles significantly removed from that which was voted for. She was elected. What she did was a disgrace, and arguably criminal.

Agree with the rest. Except Brexit wasn't what broke things, Brexit was the final piece of Brexit Cake (I'm seriously stealing that!) that exploded Mr Creosote.
 
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P.D. said:
Not really, weren't you arguing above that Truss being PM was democratic so therefore if it is and elected MPs also voted for a bill proposed by her would that not be democratic as well? Is anything being passed that isn't in the manifesto undemocratic? Where do you draw the line - you could say there's no mandate to fund Ukraine for example.
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All of that I have addressed.

I argued that Truss has been democratically elected. She has. I also argued it's the result of a broken system and hypothesised alternatives, including the above.
Compared our actual political system with my ideology is a false comparison.
One is where we're at. The other is the best way to rule :D:eek::p:eek:

SC is there, for good reason, to stop the Lord's vetoing the wishes of the Commons.
What I'm suggesting is some mechanism independent of party politics or the Commons that adjudicat or pass opinion if the Govt is trying to pass something unreasonable and way out of scope of what they were elected on.

Using Ukraine as an example - if a manifesto said something like "commit to no increase in military spending" or "not to interfere in the market", it could be argued by the opposition that helping Ukraine is outside of manifesto promises and they could motion to escalate it to be adjudicated on as a breach of the social contract between the Govt and the electorate.

In practice it would designed as a safeguard, but act as a lever to keep politicians broadly in line with that upon which they were elected.
 
would b
monkeybarry said:
If this is a typo - it might be my favourite ever!
If this was deliberate, I want to kiss you!!

Re; Truss.
Our system is built upon technicalities, so we can't escape them.
Everyone has to accept that whomever they vote for could become PM. That's why it's important to pay attention!

That's also why I've laid out a desire for various mechanism's to stop the election of a PM on a manifesto/principles significantly removed from that which was voted for.

Agree with the rest. Except Brexit wasn't what broke things, Brexit was the final piece of Brexit Cake (I'm seriously stealing that!) that exploded Mr Creosote.
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Would be interesting to analyse how frequently the PM was changed midterm, pre and post Brexit. Of course the stats would show a massive % increase post. Minority elected PMs wasn’t an issue before as it wasn’t so frequent. Now we’ve had a succession of PMs who’ve got the job off 80,000 people.

Yoh probably know better than me, but I should imagine party leaders used to change when out of power rather than while incumbents?
 
SpurMeUp said:
would b


Would be interesting to analyse how frequently the PM was changed midterm, pre and post Brexit. Of course the stats would show a massive % increase post. Minority elected PMs wasn’t an issue before as it wasn’t so frequent. Now we’ve had a succession of PMs who’ve got the job off 80,000 people.

Yoh probably know better than me, but I should imagine party leaders used to change when out of power rather than while incumbents?
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its not just the 80,000 people. Its worse than that. It’s the fact that this is open to manipulation. Can’t remember where I read it but someone registered a tortoise as a member and said tortoise voted in the leadership election.

If a tortoise can vote, who else has had a hand in installing Truss as our leader??
 
DTA said:
its not just the 80,000 people. Its worse than that. It’s the fact that this is open to manipulation. Can’t remember where I read it but someone registered a tortoise as a member and said tortoise voted in the leadership election.

If a tortoise can vote, who else has had a hand in installing Truss as our leader??
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the guy did that to make a point that no one knows who is supporting and voting in selecting the new PM. Are they a UK citizen for example? Worrying that outside influences could be selecting the PM of our country.
 
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Interesting, apparently sacked for something “security related”.

Didn’t Wallace answer a swift summons to the US a couple of days ago…
 
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