War & PoliticsBrexit deal nigh or nyet?

  

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 From:  Peter (BOUGHTONP)   19 Jun 2019 20:34 
 To:  milko      161 of 200 
42264.161 In reply to 42264.156 
Wouldn't the potential benefit of Lib Dems be in taking votes away from the Conservatives and Labour, moving away from a two-party system, and towards the possibility of PR?

Tim Farron made it clear the Lib Dems wouldn't coalesce with either of the other two parties in 2017. It's still another five weeks before we find out if they pick Ed Davey or Jo Swinson - a brief look suggests both of them suck, but I'll sit myself on the fence about whether either is opportunist enough to bury the party by jumping back into bed with the Tories.
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 From:  milko   20 Jun 2019 11:17 
 To:  Peter (BOUGHTONP)      162 of 200 
42264.162 In reply to 42264.161 
I've seen nothing to disabuse me of the opinion that the LDs are weather-vanes and will say whatever seems most politically expedient in any given moment. Chuka Umunna seems entirely suited to them in that regard, in that both him and Cable were on the fairly recent record about respecting the referendum result and hardening up on immigration at one point, but now of course it's all different and always has been. Haha, Chuka's also on record about how he could never join the LDs after their coalition history and broken promises. Lolz all round!

The LDs also managed to fuck up getting even AV, I don't have any hope they'd get anywhere with PR at all. If they surprise me then I'll be happy, but I have zero faith in it.
milko
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 From:  CHYRON (DSMITHHFX)    20 Jun 2019 18:19 
 To:  ALL 163 of 200 
42264.163 
And then there were two.
“making satanism appear normal”
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 From:  Manthorp   20 Jun 2019 20:05 
 To:  ALL 164 of 200 
42264.164 
Picking what solace I can from the wreckage, I do think that all this shit does bring us nearer to PR. FPTP was being propped up by the Coke vs. Pepsi two party cartel; but it will look less attractive to them as they drop down the rankings. One clear outcome of the recent elections is that 21st century politics can't be expressed through a 19th century electoral process.

If we're not going to descend further down the pan of irrational polarisation, we need an electoral system which ensures that every vote - no matter how much I object to it - influences the complexion of government. My vote (Green) will get on other people's tits too.
"We all have flaws, and mine is being wicked."
James Thurber, The Thirteen Clocks 1951
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 From:  CHYRON (DSMITHHFX)    20 Jun 2019 23:40 
 To:  Manthorp      165 of 200 
42264.165 In reply to 42264.164 
One must keep in mind that Israel has proportional representation, with regard to the practicality of the outcome.
“making satanism appear normal”
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 From:  milko   21 Jun 2019 11:13 
 To:  Manthorp      166 of 200 
42264.166 In reply to 42264.164 
I know from your twitter that you love this Coke/Pepsi analogy, but surely it only applies to them attempting to fudge the brexit thing without alienating large swathes of their support one way or another. As big as that is, there's a lot more life and Labour at the moment seem pretty much opposite to the Tories on austerity, tax, social care, housing, the NHS, transport, environment, and well, everything.

Anyway, I can respect a Green vote (and will go back to them if/when the centrist types finally manage to sabotage Labour enough to get it back to the middle of the road shit we tired of years ago - then it truly is something where your analogy works), there's principles in it. 
milko
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 From:  Manthorp   21 Jun 2019 12:51 
 To:  milko      167 of 200 
42264.167 In reply to 42264.166 
I only use the Coke Vs. Pepsi analogy in the context of FPTP voting, because it's in their mutual interest to maintain a system that supports the myth of a binary choice. The political calculation is that it's better to have a 50% chance of all of the pie than the virtual guarantee of around a third of it.  A proportional system is clearly more democratic, enfranchising virtually every voter, but the Tories and Labour don't support it because it's not in their parties' interests.

To Smiffy's point, yes, Israel has PR; but so do 89 other countries, including some of the most politically stable - staid, even.
"We all have flaws, and mine is being wicked."
James Thurber, The Thirteen Clocks 1951
 
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 From:  milko   21 Jun 2019 13:29 
 To:  Manthorp      168 of 200 
42264.168 In reply to 42264.167 
fair enough, that makes sense. I never did like fizzy drinks much.

Maybe we can get stuck enough into hung parliaments and minority governments to make it happen, although i dread to think the trouble getting there will cause.
milko
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 From:  CHYRON (DSMITHHFX)    21 Jun 2019 13:37 
 To:  Manthorp      169 of 200 
42264.169 In reply to 42264.167 
OK, I didn't know that, not having looked into it to any degree (obviously).

'more democratic' sounds like a good and desirable thing; in the age of facebook and twitter it is proving problematic.

I don't think a particular electoral system or political structure can in and of itself ensure a good outcome, if the participants can't even broadly agree on the definition of what that might look like.

I do think some experimentation is warranted in view of current systemic failures. A lot of what we're seeing is a rejection of the status quo because so many have been hard done by it, they are willing to entertain nuclear options (Trump, Brexit et al).

To me, the only way to save the day (and the planet), is swift and decisive wealth redistribution. Fuck 'slavery reparations', we need *poverty* reparations, on a global scale.
“making satanism appear normal”
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 From:  Peter (BOUGHTONP)   21 Jun 2019 21:47 
 To:  CHYRON (DSMITHHFX)       170 of 200 
42264.170 In reply to 42264.169 
Democracy does need an appropriately educated populace to be effective.

Capitalism works better when the peons can be conned and divided.
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 From:  CHYRON (DSMITHHFX)    22 Jun 2019 13:24 
 To:  ALL 171 of 200 
42264.171 
AsboJo got the police called to his girlfriend's flat, over a sofa-ruining drunken altercation last night
“making satanism appear normal”
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 From:  william (WILLIAMA)   28 Aug 2019 13:21 
 To:  ALL 172 of 200 
42264.172 In reply to 42264.171 
New series Rise of the Nazis on the BBC starting 2 September. Apparently Germany was a Liberal Democracy and yet 4 years later was in the hands of a dictator with a government of murderers. Seems that it was as much about ruthless personal ambition and a desire to hold onto power by more moderate politicians as it was about extreme ideology. Just saying.
never trust a man in a blue trench coat, never drive a car when you're dead
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 From:  CHYRON (DSMITHHFX)    28 Aug 2019 13:40 
 To:  william (WILLIAMA)      173 of 200 
42264.173 In reply to 42264.172 
What's happening is scary.
“fish are typically not considered to be fresh if they have been dead for a long period of time.”
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 From:  koswix   28 Aug 2019 20:03 
 To:  william (WILLIAMA)      174 of 200 
42264.174 In reply to 42264.172 
I could see Irritable Duncan Syndrome filling Joseph Goebbels' shoes.

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If Feds call you and say something bad on me, it may prove what I said are truth, they are afraid of it.
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 From:  CHYRON (DSMITHHFX)    3 Sep 2019 23:34 
 To:  ALL 175 of 200 
42264.175 
Fuck me if it hasn't all gone sideways. In a good way.
“Man threatens Popeyes employees with gun after chicken sandwich sold out.”
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 From:  william (WILLIAMA)   4 Sep 2019 06:40 
 To:  CHYRON (DSMITHHFX)       176 of 200 
42264.176 In reply to 42264.175 
I'm not counting chickens yet. My rule of thumb is to ask "what would a bunch of spoilt, entitled, schoolboys do now?" It won't necessarily be clever, but it's likely to be vicious.
never trust a man in a blue trench coat, never drive a car when you're dead
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 From:  Manthorp   4 Sep 2019 07:22 
 To:  william (WILLIAMA)      177 of 200 
42264.177 In reply to 42264.176 
I just tweeted along these lines this morning:
 
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There will be many more twists before Brexit is resolved (inasmuch as it ever will be), but today I am enjoying the apoplectic rage of the Tory cabinet at parliament refusing to comply with their crude attempts at manipulation. It says so much about their sense of entitlement.
​​​​​​​
"We all have flaws, and mine is being wicked."
James Thurber, The Thirteen Clocks 1951
 
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 From:  CHYRON (DSMITHHFX)    4 Sep 2019 09:28 
 To:  william (WILLIAMA)      178 of 200 
42264.178 In reply to 42264.176 
The vicious is getting old, beginning to look more like helpless thrashing about and self-harming. What chances do you give the "people vs parliament" shtick?
“Man threatens Popeyes employees with gun after chicken sandwich sold out.”
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 From:  william (WILLIAMA)   4 Sep 2019 10:07 
 To:  CHYRON (DSMITHHFX)       179 of 200 
42264.179 In reply to 42264.178 
It's a hard one to call. H L Mencken wrote "No one in this world, so far as I know ... has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people." The point is that this has moved far from a question of rational argument about what is best for the UK and when we're talking about how individual psychology translates into mass action and choices then who really knows?

I think Johnson has probably lost it for many Tories, but then again, there are a lot of them that emerge into the light when an election is called. And for most of them voting Tory is a religious matter. For many more, they will simply be unaware of events and as long as the Sun and the Daily Mail bray at them that BoJo is good, they'll support him. I mean, who can believe the insanity of Jacob Rees Mogg being portrayed as a Man of the People? A multi-millionaire member of the landed-gentry whose every move and utterance displays contempt for the people. 
never trust a man in a blue trench coat, never drive a car when you're dead
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 From:  Manthorp   4 Sep 2019 10:43 
 To:  william (WILLIAMA)      180 of 200 
42264.180 In reply to 42264.179 
The key problem with a pre 31 October election for Johnson's government is that the Brexit Party (so-called) will threaten to stand against them unless they adopt a no-deal Brexit policy; but if they do adopt such a policy, they will lose a small, but significant chunk of the pro-Brexit, anti-no-deal constituency. Either way they lose votes. Furthermore, nobody believes that a no-deal crash-out will be without substantial collateral damage, including damage to business, to jobs and to health & life, which will be a long term electoral liability.

Best bets for the Tories might be either to re-introduce the Withdrawal Agreement, ideally with cosmetic tweaks, but failing that, as-is, and hope that sufficient MPs are now bricking it that the balance of voting changes: or, to lose a vote of no confidence and hand the whole sorry mess over to a GNU which will be just as hamstrung as any one-party government.
"We all have flaws, and mine is being wicked."
James Thurber, The Thirteen Clocks 1951
 
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