UK Politics: Post-May Edition

[mormont]

5 minutes ago, Lord Sidious said:

Selling off gold reserves, raiding pensions, and let's not forget no more boom and bust, indeed, Brown was a bastion of competence.

Don't recall ever saying that he was. But next to cocking up that EU referendum? None of these are remotely on the same scale.

5 minutes ago, Lord Sidious said:

Cameron was forced into going through with the referendum by divisions in his own party, putting him in an impossible position, his hands were tied going through with the referendum, doesn't mean he was an incompetent PM.

Did you read my last post? No? Remember exhibits B, C and D? Did you read your own post, where you said that he shouldn't have made the pledge you now say he couldn't have avoided making?

I'll repeat: the mess Cameron made of that referendum, on its own, qualifies him as stunningly incompetent. Regardless of your views on whether leaving the EU is a bad thing, simply in terms of competence it was and is indefensible.

[Jen'ari]

15 minutes ago, mormont said:

Don't recall ever saying that he was. But next to cocking up that EU referendum? None of these are remotely on the same scale.

Did you read my last post? No? Remember exhibits B, C and D? Did you read your own post, where you said that he shouldn't have made the pledge you now say he couldn't have avoided making?

I'll repeat: the mess Cameron made of that referendum, on its own, qualifies him as stunningly incompetent. Regardless of your views on whether leaving the EU is a bad thing, simply in terms of competence it was and is indefensible.

We obviously have very different points of view on the subject as I view Browns misdeeds with the economy as being worse than Camerons calling of the referendum. I did indeed say he shouldn't have made the pledge but as he did, he didn't have a choice but to go through with it, the only one of your 'exhibits' that has any truth to it is A.

He ran a decent campaign of the EU ref, unfortunately the leave side ran a better one and spouted things like the £350m a week sums which was more attention grabbing, that and it seems many people in the U.K. Arnt as progressive and liberal as some would like to think.

[williamjm]

55 minutes ago, karaddin said:

Yeah I was really bothered by "don't worry, Ruth's got assurances she'll still be able to get married in Scotland". That's all well and good but I look pretty poorly on a lesbian that's fine with a subset of the population getting screwed just because it's not where she lives. LGBTQI people in NI deserve their rights too.

Sadly I doubt there was much prospect of them getting those rights whatever government was in Westminster, there's a reluctance to impose social policies on NI even if they're increasingly out of step with the rest of the UK. Probably the only way Northern Ireland will get more liberal policies like legalising abortion or gay marriage is if they elect a more liberal party than the DUP to lead the local government and they keep getting elected despite their terrible policies.

[Werthead]

 

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Yeah I was really bothered by "don't worry, Ruth's got assurances she'll still be able to get married in Scotland". That's all well and good but I look pretty poorly on a lesbian that's fine with a subset of the population getting screwed just because it's not where she lives. LGBTQI people in NI deserve their rights too.

 

Ruth Davidson actually went to Northern Ireland and made the keynote speech in the Belfast Pride celebrations just last year. She has been very outspoken on her criticism of Northern Ireland having different laws in place for gay rights. This is really not one cause she can be criticised on.

[Maltaran]

Ruth Davidson should run for Westminster, she's the only big name Tory I can think of who might be a decent PM

[A Horse Named Stranger]

3 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

(And if we're talking proportional representation, the German/NZ system has rare cases of overhang, where a party wins more electoral districts than its vote share entitles it to). 

In the case of Germany, it's not as rare as you think.

Small introduction to Germany's federal election system if you will. Those who are not interested, can safely skip and ignore the post in its entirety, as it's going off topic anyway.

Germany's federal election works a mixed system between FPTP and proportional voting. Simply speaking you have two votes. The primary vote is pretty much like the British System. You vote for a party candidate in your election district. The second vote is for a party. In theory the parliament should be 50-50 split between district representatives, and party elects. There are 299 districts, so the size of the German parliament should be 598 MPs (299 districts and 299 through the proportional (party votes). The smart voter splits his votes to get the most out of it.

Now most districts are won by the two and a half dinosaurs (SPD and CDU/CSU) - Berlin was a special case with The Left winning some seats in the east of the capitol, and Hans-Christian Ströble also carrying his district for the Green Party (I am curious who will pick up his seats, since he has decided against running again ). Which means the dinosaurs win more seats than they are entitled to (overhang (mandates)). A supreme court ruling in 2012 found this practice to be unfair, since they distort the election results of the decissive proportional vote. So compensatory seats were created to make up for that.That has in turn increased the number of seats quite a bit. In 2013 4 overhang mandates won by the CDU has lead to 29 compensatory seats. The more parties make it past the 5% threshold, the more compensatory seats are needed. A political scientist has calculated a polls based model in April 2016. In his model the parliament size was increased from 598 (check above) to 678 seats. This problem has been well known, and an oversized parliament is not actually desirable, but the dinosaurs in power haven't done anything to deal with that problem (e.g. reducing the number of districts).

[DaveSumm]

1 hour ago, Lord Sidious said:

He ran a decent campaign of the EU ref, unfortunately the leave side ran a better one.

Good lord, regardless of your views on Brexit I thought most people agreed that both campaigns were laughable. It was treated like we were deciding if we should sell muffins at a bake sale or not, when in fact it was one of the most monumental decisions that the British people have been asked to make in generations. Cameron took it for granted in exactly the same way May took this election for granted, and didn't even remotely plan for what would happen if we voted to leave. Hence the clusterfuck the week after we did.

[Werthead]

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He ran a decent campaign of the EU ref, 

 

No, he most certainly did not. Remain's biggest mistake was not articulating, with passion and energy, a positive reason for voting Remain. They could have raised our tremendous economic advantages, the concessions we'd won from Brussels over 40 years, our position as the most militarily powerful and second-richest country in the union, what laws we'd passed in the EU, what battles we'd won, the alliances that had been forged and our successes, and the hopes for what we could achieve in the future.

Instead the Remain argument was, "Christ, don't vote for Brexit, we might have a recession or something, I don't know. Northern Ireland? Where's that?"

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Ruth Davidson should run for Westminster, she's the only big name Tory I can think of who might be a decent PM

True, and I think it now has to be on her mind to do so. Although it would require another general election, which of course is years...okay, she probably doesn't have to wait too long.

[felice]

4 hours ago, Notone said:

In the case of Germany, it's not as rare as you think.

Huh. That's weird. Ah, it's because you have multiple regional party lists rather than just one list for the whole country? So each region has the potential to generate overhang to ensure local proportionality within a relatively small number of seats, not just national proportionality?

[karaddin]

6 hours ago, williamjm said:

Sadly I doubt there was much prospect of them getting those rights whatever government was in Westminster, there's a reluctance to impose social policies on NI even if they're increasingly out of step with the rest of the UK. Probably the only way Northern Ireland will get more liberal policies like legalising abortion or gay marriage is if they elect a more liberal party than the DUP to lead the local government and they keep getting elected despite their terrible policies.

And I can accept that the way I accept I'm not getting the right to marry in this parliamentary term in Australia. I just object to it being framed as a good thing rather than less bad that it won't be pushed on the rest of the UK.

6 hours ago, Werthead said:

 

Ruth Davidson actually went to Northern Ireland and made the keynote speech in the Belfast Pride celebrations just last year. She has been very outspoken on her criticism of Northern Ireland having different laws in place for gay rights. This is really not one cause she can be criticised on.

Yeah, see my concession to Mormont. I was confusing the way I'm seeing it talked about framed from her perspective with her actual position

[all swedes are racist]

is it possible, if may doesn't step down, that there could be a no confidence vote against this government?

[karaddin]

Regardless of whether Cameron was more or less incompetent than May, he showed he was more principled by stepping down as soon as it was apparent how greatly he'd cocked it up. I can't believe how you could think sticking around is a good idea.

[williamjm]

20 minutes ago, commiedore said:

is it possible, if may doesn't step down, that there could be a no confidence vote against this government?

Only if they fail to make their deal with the DUP, otherwise that would require some Tories to bring down their own government and force a general election Corbyn might well win.

More likely is that there's a leadership challenge inside the Tory party, possibly initially a stalking horse candidate who doesn't intend to win themselves followed by more serious contenders jumping in once there is a contest. If the Brexit negotiations weren't due to start in a few days I think this might have already have happened.

11 minutes ago, karaddin said:

Regardless of whether Cameron was more or less incompetent than May, he showed he was more principled by stepping down as soon as it was apparent how greatly he'd cocked it up. I can't believe how you could think sticking around is a good idea.

Some rumours are suggesting May did want to resign, but was persuaded against it because of the vacuum it would leave. Given that Brexit is on a fixed timetable it isn't ideal to have to delay the start of negotiations while the Tories spend months electing a new leader. I think the only way around that could be if the Tory MPs all agreed to back a single candidate and avoided the need for a leadership election, but I'm not sure who could command such support. Candidates who take a hardline approach to Brexit might be opposed by the Tory Remainers (now maybe reinforced by the Scottish contingent who might share Ruth Davison's dislike of Brexit), while candidates who want a more moderate approach to Brexit will be opposed by the hardline Eurosceptics. I expect Boris will try to be all things to all people, but that didn't really work for him in last year's contest.

Of course, this is another thing that's May's fault, it was completely irresponsible to start the Brexit process and then immediately call an unnecessary election which she then failed to win. If she had any consideration for the best interests of the country then invoking Article 50 should have been done after the election, not before.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

6 hours ago, felice said:

Ah, it's because you have multiple regional party lists rather than just one list for the whole country? So each region has the potential to generate overhang to ensure local proportionality within a relatively small number of seats, not just national proportionality?

 

Sorta, kinda. Basically, yes. Since I don't want to highjack this thread (it's the UK politics and not the wacky German electoral law thread), I will just quickly answer the probable follow up question why not just change it to a national proportionality list.

You have to take a look where the overhang mandates are created. The vast majority comes from the south, where it's basically a conservative sweep in the districts (with 1-2 exceptions). To make a long story short, you would basically end up cutting seats mainly from North Rhine Westphalia and Lower Saxony. Which isn't great, since it reduces the weight of a vote cast in those states (so to speak) and adds weight to votes casted in the south. And that's not taking Bavaria into account. Bavaria is the state that provides most of the bozos and ill thought out laws on a federal level. That's because most of those bozos are members of the CSU. The CSU is only running in Bavaria (in any other state the CDU is running - historical reasons yadda, yadda, yadda). Now since the CSU is not running in any other state, you can hardly cut their Bavarian overhangs anywhere else.

5 hours ago, williamjm said:

More likely is that there's a leadership challenge inside the Tory party, possibly initially a stalking horse candidate who doesn't intend to win themselves followed by more serious contenders jumping in once there is a contest. If the Brexit negotiations weren't due to start in a few days I think this might have already have happened.

In a few days? I thought the schedule was to get them finally started next monday (the 19th), which is already quite late thanks to that snap election. The two year time table for the divorce settlement itself was pretty ambitious to begin with. So time was a very rare good to spend on that election.

5 hours ago, williamjm said:

Of course, this is another thing that's May's fault, it was completely irresponsible to start the Brexit process and then immediately call an unnecessary election which she then failed to win. If she had any consideration for the best interests of the country then invoking Article 50 should have been done after the election, not before.

Or simply not calling the snap election at all and instead starting the negotiations in earnest instead of those strong (wo-)man posturing for the electorate at home.

5 hours ago, williamjm said:

I expect Boris will try to be all things to all people, but that didn't really work for him in last year's contest.

There was a funny scene on a news program friday night. The anchor had a short interview with a professor of political science at a British university and his take on the election result and whether May's position was still tenable. The anchor asked him, whether there would be some backbencher stabbing May in the back. His response was, he didn't think it would be a backbencher, but rather somebody from the frontbench like Boris Johnson. The facial expression on the anchors face in that very moment was hillarious. She was (for whatever reason shocked by that) and said something along the lines, "but he would surely stab for someones else [and not wanting to become PM himself]." His response was, yes his performance as foreign secretary had been a joke, but he himself harbors those very ambitions to become PM himself. And it's a bit down to the Tories, whether they want a good campaigner who inspires hope in them (he meant Johnson), or whether they prefer some political expert, who knows what they're doing. Especially with regards to the difficult challenge ahead.

[Maltaran]

7 hours ago, williamjm said:

More likely is that there's a leadership challenge inside the Tory party, possibly initially a stalking horse candidate who doesn't intend to win themselves followed by more serious contenders jumping in once there is a contest. If the Brexit negotiations weren't due to start in a few days I think this might have already have happened.

 

Allegedly, this was going to happen on Monday if May's two chief advisers hadn't resigned yesterday.

[mormont]

16 hours ago, Lord Sidious said:

We obviously have very different points of view on the subject as I view Browns misdeeds with the economy as being worse than Camerons calling of the referendum. I did indeed say he shouldn't have made the pledge but as he did, he didn't have a choice but to go through with it, the only one of your 'exhibits' that has any truth to it is A.

He ran a decent campaign of the EU ref, unfortunately the leave side ran a better one and spouted things like the £350m a week sums which was more attention grabbing, that and it seems many people in the U.K. Arnt as progressive and liberal as some would like to think.

Yeah... see, the problem here is that you're making claims without backing them up. Were Brown's misdeeds worse? OK, explain why. Is there no truth to the claim that Cameron failed to prepare for the referendum? OK, tell me how he prepared for it adequately. Did he actually run a decent campaign? OK, tell me its strengths.

It's not even a case of your arguments being flawed - they're simply not there at all. With respect, I would suggest that's because they don't exist. Your claims here reflect things you want to believe, but which are not in fact true: as a result, you have nothing to back them up.

15 hours ago, Maltaran said:

Ruth Davidson should run for Westminster, she's the only big name Tory I can think of who might be a decent PM

I think we're seeing that effect where an unfamiliar Scottish politician becomes prominent and lots of English voters think 'this person is much better than our lot!' We saw it with Sturgeon before, now it's Davidson. Unfamiliarity has its advantages: a blank canvas on which to project.

Davidson is fine on social issues and more moderate than May, but as someone who's more familiar with her I'm sceptical she'd make a decent PM (or even First Minister).

 

[DaveSumm]

So, out of curiosity, who do you think would win if there was an election tomorrow; Boris or Corbyn? I'd like to think Corbyn could keep the momentum going and capitalise on the mess the Tories have made, but I have a feeling it'd be another hung parliament. It'd be a lot closer than the last one, but I'm not convinced Corbyn could pull it all the way up to 326.

[Werthead]

10 hours ago, commiedore said:

is it possible, if may doesn't step down, that there could be a no confidence vote against this government?

As said above, yes. In fact, Labour seem to be considering this. The majority, even with the DUP on board, is absolutely wafer-thin and it won't take more than a few Tory backbenchers pissed off with the idea of aligning with the DUP to bring it crashing down.

They might not do that because in another election, the Conservatives will lose and will lose badly. The post-election opinion polls show them crashing right now. That might be a blip and they recover after a few more weeks (and if the DUP non-coalition holds), but right now it would be catastrophic for the Conservative Party and the backbenchers, many of whose majorities have been demolished to just triple figures (even double figures in a few cases) won't want to risk getting themselves fired. May's most powerful critic in the party right now is Ruth Davidson, but she will be balancing her principled stance against the DUP against the fact that her 13 MPs might lose their seats to either Labour or the SNP if another election is held. Her leverage might be better deployed in keeping the DUP's more toxic aspects at bay from Westminster by making it clear - as she already has - that she has her finger on the trigger and can essentially collapse this government at will.

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I can't believe how you could think sticking around is a good idea.

As William says, she was talked out of going because of the chaos it would bring. Also, May called the election in part to get a personal mandate. Another Tory leader taking over as PM without a personal election would simply resurrect that problem.

Finally, there are absolutely no viable candidates available to replace her. Most of the Tory big hitters went down with Cameron or have gone since. You can't have a leader with a tiny majority and the charisma of a Waffen SS officer, which rules out Rudd, and bringing back Mutant Chipmunk Gove would be political suicide. Davis mistakes smugness for intelligence and Fox has the gravitas of a bank manager locked in an eternal battle with constipation. Grayling is just nope. Hammond I think has some potential, but he's clearly a cautious politician and sceptical of Brexit, and seems to have a mixed reputation in the party. Boris is a spent force, and both his recent shambolic performance as Foreign Secretary and him bottling it last year seem to have turned off a lot of former cheerleaders in the party. But he might be rallied around as the last man standing with even a vague chance of winning.

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The two year time table for the divorce settlement itself was pretty ambitious to begin with. So time was a very rare good to spend on that election.

 

It isn't two years, it's 16 months. The negotiations have to be completed by the end of October 2018 so the 27 European governments have time to amend, ratify and pass. If we get to October 2018 and a deal is taking shape and is looking good but needs more work and all 28 governments agree, then it can be extended, but the chances of this seem pretty slim.

The default assumption right now is that we are crashing out of the EU with no deal, because to negotiate a good deal from where we are now would take about five years minimum.

 

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So, out of curiosity, who do you think would win if there was an election tomorrow; Boris or Corbyn? I'd like to think Corbyn could keep the momentum going and capitalise on the mess the Tories have made, but I have a feeling it'd be another hung parliament. It'd be a lot closer than the last one, but I'm not convinced Corbyn could pull it all the way up to 326.

 

Corbyn. The Tories are currently crashing in the polls (Labour have pulled 7 points ahead), which is to be expected as Tory voters are furious that May has put them through this. At the ballot box, they'd probably pull back to voting Conservative. But there are a lot of would-be Labour voters out there who didn't turn out because they thought May would walk it. Labour have also identified at least 13 seats they could have taken but didn't put any effort into: they've actually said they miscalculated by focusing Corbyn in safe seats rather than marginals, which turned out to be unnecessary. They've already mapped out those seats they can take which wouldn't give them a majority, but would push them into a working coalition territory with the LibDems and SNP (the latter more likely now because the SNP mandate for Indy Ref 2 has been damaged). We'd also likely see those reluctant liberal media bastions getting behind Corbyn much more firmly and decisively, although given how the conservative press seemingly completely failed to damage him that likewise may not have an impact.

Give it a few weeks and, if the DUP agreement holds, it might be that people would return to the fold and we'd get another hung Parliament. In particular, it would be difficult to increase the youth vote more (although there's probably a couple of percent left on the table) and it might be reluctant or abstaining Tory voters would turn out more heavily now there's a real and imminent threat from Corbyn.

[Jen'ari]

2 hours ago, mormont said:

Yeah... see, the problem here is that you're making claims without backing them up. Were Brown's misdeeds worse? OK, explain why. Is there no truth to the claim that Cameron failed to prepare for the referendum? OK, tell me how he prepared for it adequately. Did he actually run a decent campaign? OK, tell me its strengths.

It's not even a case of your arguments being flawed - they're simply not there at all. With respect, I would suggest that's because they don't exist. Your claims here reflect things you want to believe, but which are not in fact true: as a result, you have nothing to back them up.

I think we're seeing that effect where an unfamiliar Scottish politician becomes prominent and lots of English voters think 'this person is much better than our lot!' We saw it with Sturgeon before, now it's Davidson. Unfamiliarity has its advantages: a blank canvas on which to project.

Davidson is fine on social issues and more moderate than May, but as someone who's more familiar with her I'm sceptical she'd make a decent PM (or even First Minister).

 

Brown presided over the economy during one of the worst financial crises in recent history, he sold off gold reserves at record low prices and overspent to a huge degree which led to austerity measures being implemented in the first place, is backing up what has been common knowledge for nearly a decade nessescary?, I've never said Cameron isn't a flawed leader but I believe him to be far less of one than Brown was.

Cameron's handling of the referendum campaign is a matter of opinion, I don't think how he handled it was done badly, where he did fall short was the renegotiations with the EU before the referendum was called.

The same could be argued that you believe things that you wish to, and being as you're particularly left leaning and I'm not we're unlikely to find any common ground except that of May needing to go.

[Maltaran]

2 hours ago, mormont said:

 

I think we're seeing that effect where an unfamiliar Scottish politician becomes prominent and lots of English voters think 'this person is much better than our lot!' We saw it with Sturgeon before, now it's Davidson. Unfamiliarity has its advantages: a blank canvas on which to project.

Davidson is fine on social issues and more moderate than May, but as someone who's more familiar with her I'm sceptical she'd make a decent PM (or even First Minister).

 

There's a Yougov poll I just saw on Twitter which asked if May resigns, would these people be good or bad leaders, with 6 different big name Tories. Davidson is the only one who has a net positive score (although admittedly that's only 20-15, she also has by far the largest number of don't knows)