UK Politics - You can't correct a mistake, if you don't admit it was a mistake

[mormont]

There's a lot about the DUP/NI situation that's unique but a lot I find telling in the context of what's going on internationally with major right-wing parties. Basically, it's a story of a party of that still has the numbers to be in power - just - but has stopped even trying to appeal to anyone outside its increasingly fundamentalist base and is obsessed with culture wars intended to return to/preserve a glorious past that was, in fact, pretty terrible for everyone else. And in its obsession, it's now eating itself: only the ideologically pure may lead, compromise is betrayal, realism is out the window. Should sound familiar...

[Spockydog]

2 hours ago, SeanF said:

The Lib Dems have won Chesham & Amersham.  It's unusual, being a Conservative seat that voted 55% Remain, but the salient local issues were opposition to HS2, and opposition to new house-building.  

I bet on them at 7-1, so naturally feel quite chipper.

Tactical voting. This is how we beat them. 

[Hereward]

1 hour ago, lacuna said:

Out of curiosity, what would the ex-farmers, and the next generation would-be farmers, start doing instead? There are only so many B&Bs an area can take, I assume. And with a mass exodus of farmers, supermarkets, schools, local clinics, hairdressers etc gradually crumble for lack of customers. (Plus, without said supermarkets, schools and so on, even the B&Bs go under.)

And where do all these workers end up? In the cities, looking for work and a place to live. And some politician's heads to lop off, presumably.

Also, knock wood, what if another war or some other global crisis isolates the UK, or one elsewhere disrupts the supply chain? Having some domestic food production capability to pick up some of the slack seems like a good idea.

That said, I agree that agriculture is a huge environmental problem that needs to be adressed. I'd very much like Norway to do more hydroponic farming, mobile fish farms, free range meat and dairy, etc.

My son has made off with the book I read on this issue, so this is from memory. In Wales, 75% of the land is devoted to sheep farming, but less than 1% of the population is supported by it, and it produces 0.5% of GDP, while being damaging to diversity and the environment.

Large-scale rewilding projects, on the other hand, could employ far more people, in land preparation and management, while also providing more agricultural jobs in managing the mix of cattle, pigs and sheep that would roam relatively freely to create the habitat. Apart from B&Bs, there would also be the associated support businesses, plus opportunities for wardens, wildlife and birding tours, and other low-impact outdoor activities such as rock climbing, kayaking, etc.
 

I’m willing to bet the GDP contribution would be far higher, as would the number of jobs. Some people would lose out, of course, but that’s going to be the case with any green economic initiatives.

Edit: On the war issue, I’m not suggesting eliminating food production altogether! We produce a higher percentage of our food than before WW2 anyway. And we’d have far bigger problems with the globalisation of military production, steel and electronics  than food if it came to it!

[Hereward]

16 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Tactical voting. This is how we beat them. 

Not really. This isn’t down to a common front between Labour and LbDems, though there’s an element of that. This is about local issues and the defection or abstention of moderate Tories. Also, lots of LibDems are just as hostile to Labour as they are to the Tories, if they weren’t, they’d be Labour voters already.

[Hereward]

1 hour ago, Angus McGonagle said:

There's a lot about the DUP/NI situation that's unique but a lot I find telling in the context of what's going on internationally with major right-wing parties. Basically, it's a story of a party of that still has the numbers to be in power - just - but has stopped even trying to appeal to anyone outside its increasingly fundamentalist base and is obsessed with culture wars intended to return to/preserve a glorious past that was, in fact, pretty terrible for everyone else. And in its obsession, it's now eating itself: only the ideologically pure may lead, compromise is betrayal, realism is out the window. Should sound familiar...

This isn’t just a feature of right-wing parties! Except on the left, the goal seems to be to remain in ideologically pure opposition, so the demands and compromises of governing, and often having to choose between two unpalatable options, don’t make matters even worse. The blatantly obvious and simple solutions they often claim to have then never have to be tested in practice.

[SeanF]

57 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Tactical voting. This is how we beat them. 

Probably, Labour voters have now forgiven the Lib Dems, after eleven years, sufficiently to vote for them in by-elections.  Whether that is reciprocated is debateable.

However, the Lib Dems have entirely lost their old heartland in the South West, which voted Leave.  They have the potential to gain in the London commuter belt, but not really anywhere else.

[Spockydog]

34 minutes ago, Hereward said:

Not really. This isn’t down to a common front between Labour and LbDems, though there’s an element of that. 

I think you're downplaying this. Labour's vote collapsed completely. Think they got about 500 votes. And I'm seeing plenty of anecdotal evidence of traditional Labour voters tactically voting LibDem. 

Anyway, whatever the reasons, it's a seismic result. A huge kick in Johnson's gonads, and hopefully a sign of things to come. 

[Spockydog]

 

 

[Hereward]

Just now, Spockydog said:

I think you're downplaying this. Labour's vote collapsed completely. Think they got about 500 votes. And I'm seeing plenty of anecdotal evidence of traditional Labour voters tactically voting LibDem. 

Anyway, whatever the reasons, it's a seismic result. A huge kick in Johnson's gonads, and hopefully a sign of things to come. 

Maybe, but if the Tory vote had held up, and every previous Labour voter had switched, the Tories would still have won. 
 

The Tories problem is not principally tactical voting, it’s the purging of the socially liberal, “internationalist” wing. Without them, they will lose rural southern seats to the LibDems and university/high tech focussed towns to Labour. 

[Spockydog]

Strong and stable. Woohoo! 

 

 

[Heartofice]

54 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Strong and stable. Woohoo! 

 

 

 

[Werthead]

6 hours ago, lacuna said:

Also, knock wood, what if another war or some other global crisis isolates the UK, or one elsewhere disrupts the supply chain? Having some domestic food production capability to pick up some of the slack seems like a good idea.

Last time I checked the figures, they were that Britain could feed 30-45% of its population purely from domestic sources at present. But if we assume the disruption was widespread (i.e. global), then we could make up the shortfall from the Republic of Ireland, which has food surplus coming out of the wazoo: one of their agricultural goals is to produce enough food to feed 50 million people a year, which is ten times their population and over two-thirds of the UK population by itself. So the British Isles combined have the ability to feed themselves.

However, given as said that we weren't completely self-sufficient in food in WWII, there is a real debate to be had on whether food security should be put ahead of the economic boost by gains in doing something else with the land. On the flipside, if climate change is to impact vast areas of the world where huge amounts of food production currently happens (certainly in the USA, Australia and China) then, we might need every inch of land we can get our hands on. This is one of those decisions you don't want to get wrong, whilst also noting it may be political suicide as well.

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Tactical voting. This is how we beat them. 

Optimistic, I think. This is the during-term, by-election norm: supporters of the party in government don't turn out and people can seek to "punish" the government for failures whilst not actually risking a change in government. This was also unusual in being a heavily (ish) Remain seat, so the normal LibDems Achilles' heel in targeting Tory and Labour Leave seats isn't as in play. Seeing some commentators suggesting that this might be a sign of people moving on from Brexit, which I don't seen any evidence for at all (at least not in this single result).

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There's a lot about the DUP/NI situation that's unique but a lot I find telling in the context of what's going on internationally with major right-wing parties. Basically, it's a story of a party of that still has the numbers to be in power - just - but has stopped even trying to appeal to anyone outside its increasingly fundamentalist base and is obsessed with culture wars intended to return to/preserve a glorious past that was, in fact, pretty terrible for everyone else. And in its obsession, it's now eating itself: only the ideologically pure may lead, compromise is betrayal, realism is out the window. Should sound familiar...

The absence of compromise is interesting. Basically, you need to have a Unionist-Nationalist alliance given how closely placed they are, but you also have the problem of them fundamentally disagreeing on almost everything, making governance either impossible or just a continuation of the status quo of the moment.

On that basis, the DUP may be happy to collapse Stormont and try to get London to impose direct rule, which benefits them but pisses off the nationalists (which they are happy to do).

However, it could backfire. If enough secularists, not-really-bothered Northern Irish get annoyed by this constant abandoning of responsibility, that might tip the numbers for reunification over the line, and then Sinn Fein can get their referendum, which would be both contentious and could easily see the DUP reduced to a tiny party representing a small corner of a much bigger country with zero hope of ever seeing power again, and in that context violence is overwhelmingly likely.

[SeanF]

5 hours ago, Hereward said:

Maybe, but if the Tory vote had held up, and every previous Labour voter had switched, the Tories would still have won. 
 

The Tories problem is not principally tactical voting, it’s the purging of the socially liberal, “internationalist” wing. Without them, they will lose rural southern seats to the LibDems and university/high tech focussed towns to Labour. 

I think the Conservatives are vulnerable in some stockbroker belt seats.  But rural seats in the SW, East Anglia, Kent and Essex are rock solid for them.

[Which Tyler]

 

[Which Tyler]

The war against checks and balances continues apace.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/electoral-commission-boris-johnson-flat-b1868407.html

[SeanF]

12 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-57521972
 

Poots: "This has been a difficult period for the party and the country and I have conveyed to the chairman my determination to do everything I can to ensure both unionism and Northern Ireland is able to move forward to a stronger place.“

Interesting priority...

This party seems to be a delusional dinosaur, clinging on to ‘being British’ even though it is painfully clear most of the UK (and especially the government) gives zero shits about them or them being part of the UK.

Poots seems to have absolutely none of the qualities required to be a party leader.  All he did was to dedicate his life towards bringing down Arlene Foster.

[Derfel Cadarn]

2 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Poots seems to have absolutely none of the qualities required to be a party leader.  All he did was to dedicate his life towards bringing down Arlene Foster.

In fairness to him, 21 days probably feels like a respectable amount of time when one is of the belief that the earth is only 6000 years old.

[Werthead]

Bercow has defected to Labour. Interesting move, and the final twist in a decades-long centrewards movement from being a "rabid rightwinger" as a young Tory.

Not sure if his presence is a help or a hindrance to Labour looking to pick up other disaffected Tories.

[Derfel Cadarn]

Holy fuckballs! Buckle up, we’re going North Korea and Hitler Youth!

“Strong Britain, Great Nation”. Boak!

https://www.thenational.scot/news/19325929.one-britain-one-nation-event-childs-school-sparks-scots-parents-anger/

 

 

[Spockydog]

State of this fucking country.