UK Politics: Picking Your Career

[Spockydog]

Fucking useless. 

[Raja]

I get talking about evolving situations is difficutlt, but he seems to have a real issue speaking like a normal human being.

[Spockydog]

Surprised he didn't call Kuenssberg out for being one of Johnson's biggest enablers.

 

 

[Spockydog]

Bloody hell.

Queen was asked to block Evgeny Lebedev’s peerage, claims documentary

Quote

 

Government officials asked whether the late Queen would block Evgeny Lebedev’s peerage because of concerns that he could be a national security risk due to his father’s links to the Putin regime, a documentary has claimed.

The aides contacted Buckingham Palace in July 2020 to request that the monarch intervene, which she was constitutionally entitled to do, after Boris Johnson decided to press ahead with the controversial peerage despite warnings from the intelligence agencies, according to the film-makers.

The Palace is understood to have refused, fearing that the irregular request would drag the Queen into controversial political matters, and his elevation to the House of Lords as Baron Lebedev of Hampton and Siberia went ahead that December.

 

 

[Derfel Cadarn]

Fake subtitles

edit: wrong thread…

 

Edited June 26 by Derfel Cadarn

[Tywin et al.]

Figured it best to move this here:

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

I don't think they should be paid more to attract better people as I don't think it would. But so you can say that's your very generous salary, no outside interests.

I think it's the most bizarre thing in the world how we allow our politicians to be beholden to people paying for influence. 

Imagine if I started taking backhanded from drug dealers, and everyone said 'fair enough'? 

I do think increased pay would help attract more people, hopefully more qualified people that is, paired with a change in how campaigns are run and how they're financed would solve a lot of issues with our shitty elected officials. It would fixx everything, but it's a start.

[mormont]

You've said so before, and the lack of any evidence to support this view has been pointed out. There's no evidence that the problem with the current candidates is that they're unqualified, no evidence that there are more suitable people out there, no evidence that if there are more suitable people that money is a big obstacle to attracting them, and most crucially of all, absolutely no evidence that high earners or people motivated by money are higher quality politicians than people who are content with a salary that is nearly triple the median wage. 

It's also not a specifically UK issue, so I don't know why this would be the thread for it.

[Rorshach]

Think I read somewhere that part of the problem of selection is that the candidate needs to have a lot of funds available just to live, as *running* isn't a paid job even if it is a full time job and more. 

So any new candidates will appear from a limited subset of society.

That accurate?

[Tywin et al.]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

You've said so before, and the lack of any evidence to support this view has been pointed out. There's no evidence that the problem with the current candidates is that they're unqualified, no evidence that there are more suitable people out there, no evidence that if there are more suitable people that money is a big obstacle to attracting them, and most crucially of all,

Is there any evidence that lower wages for politicians attracts better candidates? And I would say based on your last few Prime Ministers and those they surrounded themselves with your candidates for the highest offices are pretty unqualified. There are probably a million people in the UK that would do at least as good of a job as BoJo, maybe a lot more, so there are other people out there that should be encouraged to run for office and the barriers need to be lowered while also making the job more enticing. If you don't think pay is a major driver, sure, it isn't for some, but I've told you before my first hand experiences talking with politicians I worked for who wrestled with the fact they're making way less than if they were in the private sector and I believe that can be a recipe for corruption. 

Quote

absolutely no evidence that high earners or people motivated by money are higher quality politicians than people who are content with a salary that is nearly triple the median wage. 

It's not just about getting really wealthy people to run for office. Frankly if a super rich person runs for an office that pays nothing you should wonder what their real goal is. I'm talking more about about a lawyer who makes $500k in the private sector having to take less of a pay cut, but it also applies to someone making about the same amount MPs make now and deciding it's not worth the BS. Give them a bit of a raise and they might change their minds. 

It's not some silver bullet, but how's it really going to hurt outside of spending a fractional amount of money?

[mormont]

Rich people will save us from ourselves, if only we give them more money.

[Derfel Cadarn]

Daily Heil basically trying to bribe parents into making up stories that their kid identifies as a cat or another animal. Can be anonynous and will get paid a fee.

 

When I was a kid, we called this “having an imagination.” I used to identify as Luke Skywalker and Optimus Prime. No one gave a shit.

Tempted to send them a pic of my daughter dressed up as Peter Rabbit and tell them she only eats veg and hay, and lives in a hutch.

Edited June 26 by Derfel Cadarn

[Poobah]

4 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Is there any evidence that lower wages for politicians attracts better candidates? And I would say based on your last few Prime Ministers and those they surrounded themselves with your candidates for the highest offices are pretty unqualified. There are probably a million people in the UK that would do at least as good of a job as BoJo, maybe a lot more, so there are other people out there that should be encouraged to run for office and the barriers need to be lowered while also making the job more enticing. If you don't think pay is a major driver, sure, it isn't for some, but I've told you before my first hand experiences talking with politicians I worked for who wrestled with the fact they're making way less than if they were in the private sector and I believe that can be a recipe for corruption. 

It's not just about getting really wealthy people to run for office. Frankly if a super rich person runs for an office that pays nothing you should wonder what their real goal is. I'm talking more about about a lawyer who makes $500k in the private sector having to take less of a pay cut, but it also applies to someone making about the same amount MPs make now and deciding it's not worth the BS. Give them a bit of a raise and they might change their minds. 

It's not some silver bullet, but how's it really going to hurt outside of spending a fractional amount of money?

The problem is that we have corrupt idiots who go into politics for the money and power... so the solution is to make going in to politics more profitable?

If you want to talk about accessibility of high office in this country you might start by looking at all the classism - the public (private for those non-uk dwellers amongst us) school elitism - that permeates it, that's what's responsible for our leaders staggering lack of qualifications, not lack of proper incentives. 

Edited June 27 by Poobah
grammar

[Tywin et al.]

6 minutes ago, Poobah said:

The problem is that we have corrupt idiots who go into politics for the money and power... so the solution is to make going in to politics more profitable?

I'd frame it more as higher pay and less ridicules campaigns would ideally expand the number of people who'd be willing to run.

Quote

If you want to talk about accessibility of high office in this country you might start by looking at all the classism - the public (private for those non-uk dwellers amongst us) school elitism - that permeates it, that's what's responsible for our leaders staggering lack of qualifications, not lack of proper incentives. 

That happens in the US too. H.W. Bush went to Yale. Clinton went to Yale. Dubya went to Harvard and Yale. Obama went to Harvard. Trump went to Penn. Biden is the first President not to go to an Ivy since I was born. Idk what the statistics are, but an absurd number of our elected officials went to a handful of schools that don't reflect most people's experiences. I've always thought UK elected officials were kind of in the same. And in both countries a lot of them got there not because of merit. 

[BigFatCoward]

Easiest way to solve british politics problems, one MP per private school, and only the same % of MP's as % of pupils who attended private school. 

[Spockydog]

Tell us again that Britain doesn't have a massive fucking problem with institutional racism. The detail in this report is horrific.

English cricket is ‘racist, sexist and elitist’, says landmark report

Of course...

“Some people may roll their eyes at the perceived ‘wokeness’ of this work,” the report states. “However, as much as the word may have been weaponized in recent years, taking on a pejorative meaning, we consider – and it is often defined as such – that being ‘woke’ or doing ‘woke work’ simply means being alive to injustice.”

[Raja]

Not just Junior doctors now

 

[Spockydog]

Meanwhile... 

Sunak and his fetid little imps are squeezing the life out of normal people, whilst cunts like these are getting fatter and fatter on people's misery.

 

[Varysblackfyre321]

I’ve seen the classic defense of :have you considered the possibility that someone from a well off would use this when they don’t need it?

The lovely argument that has gotten working class people to push for a curtailing of government services and safety nets that would most likely help 

[The Anti-Targ]

10 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Tell us again that Britain doesn't have a massive fucking problem with institutional racism. The detail in this report is horrific.

English cricket is ‘racist, sexist and elitist’, says landmark report

Of course...

“Some people may roll their eyes at the perceived ‘wokeness’ of this work,” the report states. “However, as much as the word may have been weaponized in recent years, taking on a pejorative meaning, we consider – and it is often defined as such – that being ‘woke’ or doing ‘woke work’ simply means being alive to injustice.”

No, no, no, no that is not allowed to be what woke means! Woke can only be defined by what people who hate social change that benefits minorities* and women think it should mean.

 

*Though anything that benefits the minority that is the wealthiest 1% is totally fine, of course. They are such a small numeric minority that they need all the benefits of protection that the law can allow. And what about the wealthiest 0.1%? They are obviously an endangered breed and need even more protection.

[The Anti-Targ]

9 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Meanwhile... 

Sunak and his fetid little imps are squeezing the life out of normal people, whilst cunts like these are getting fatter and fatter on people's misery.

 

What silence? I distinctly heard someone muttering "you can make football tickets cheaper if you pay the players less." What they actual...? Food and football tickets are exactly the same thing. Though, y'know, I do think they could pay stadium workers more if they decreased player salaries a bit.

Executive bonuses should be prohibited unless there are bonuses for all employees. And executive salaries and bonuses should be based on a standard multiplier of the lowest paid employee annual wage (including exclusive contractors and zero hour employees) / bonus. If your CEO salary is set to, say, 100x the lowest paid employee, then if the lowest paid employee earns $11/hr and their pay goes up to $12/hr then the CEO gets a phat $100/hr payrise. It's a good incentive to give employees pay rises, because the CE only gets a pay rise when they do. With bonuses you set the bonus for the lowest level employee and then multiply up from that. Again, the bigger the low paid person't bonus the bigger the management and executive bonuses.

Publicly listed companies can't do that sort of thing off their own bat because it will lead to shareholders taking action to protect their profits, so controls have to be legislative. If it's left up to the market, then the market will stick with the status quo, until it can find some way to channel even more money to the shareholders.

The quasi-socialist thing of course would be to mandate that X% of all public company (ordinary voting) shares belong to the non-executive workers. Regardless of what country the company is listed in.