Stop voting for fucking Tories

[Paddington Bear]

Well maybe ok to much of that but it’s a depressing thought if as a country we’re incapable of meaningfully reforming the HoL.

Not opposed to reforming it, just think we need more thought as to what we’re trying to achieve with it and the outcomes. I.e a proportional chamber probably best but all but guarantees Farage a seat etc

[GogLais]

Well maybe ok to much of that but it’s a depressing thought if as a country we’re incapable of meaningfully reforming the HoL.

Not opposed to reforming it, just think we need more thought as to what we’re trying to achieve with it and the outcomes. I.e a proportional chamber probably best but all but guarantees Farage a seat etc

I don’t think Labour have detailed proposals for the HoL atm. As far as I’m concerned they have a Parliament term to sort it out and I’m sure it won’t and can’t be a priority for the first couple of years.

[Calculon]

If farage gets the votes why shouldn't he get a seat. I mean people who share his political views also deserve representation

[_Os_]

Further devolution and making the Lords a 'chamber of regions' are not only wastes of parliamentary time as Mandelson suggests, but also bad ideas in their own right. Mucking around with the constitution has generally got us worse outcomes over the last 30 years or so and there's little evidence that's about to change.

There's majority polling support for Lords reform, if they win a majority with that in the manifesto there'll be a mandate. I'm not sure what the point of having an unwritten flexible constitution is if you want to keep everything fixed in stone? Isn't a lot of the point that things can be made and unmade based purely on commanding a majority in the Commons (which seems mad to me, but those are the rules).

I think you'll be hard pressed to find Scots that think devolution itself was bad and should be rolled back. When a third option of further devolution is given to Scots on the constitutional question, that usually beats no change and independence. Which is why Salmond wanted that third option on the ballot in 2014 and why Cameron refused that request (because it would look like Cameron had lost when more devolution won).

The Tories just fucked this one, Cameron's big constitutional idea was referendums on everything. Just about every Tory MP was talking big on constitutional change before the 2015 election, Cameron even got Heseltine to produce a report on economic growth which recommended regionalism within England giving more power to cities (the Tories do not agree that economic growth is unlinked to constitutional reform, they've said they're closely linked in the recent past). The Tories then agreed it was all good stuff, and did nothing, other than the referendums. Then there was the Levelling Up stuff, without the content of the previous plan leaving just the slogan.

The waste of parliamentary time is when nothing happens because there's no plan, which is the current situation of the last half decade.

Interesting question raised here - has devolution been a success? Which requires reminding ourselves of the stated and slightly less stated but obvious objectives of it (in the Scottish context):

1) To 'kill nationalism in its cradle'
2) To demonstrate that the Labour Party is the authentic voice of the Scottish people
3) To consolidate the Labour Party in its Scottish heartland

That went well.

Constitutional reform has to be looked at through the lens of the British state, which Starmer and Labour aim to be in charge of sooner rather than later. Devolution may have had its successes, it has had its failures, but clearly it has weakened the British state, almost to the point of collapse. I'm not anti-devolution per se, but the way it was set up meant it could only end one way - as a tool for dividing the Union. It worked well enough when Labour were in power in Westminster, Cardiff and Holyrood, but has failed in all other circumstances.

Your point on regionalism is a better one. The challenges of devolution as it has been created are:

1) If you insist on devolving to Scotland and Wales as nations you can't possibly to England for obvious reasons, creating obvious problems
2) None of these entities are able to raise enough of their own money and the English ones lack the power to make enough of their own decisions to create better outcomes. So we end up with the worst of both worlds, an incoherent system that breaks down common ties within the country and encourages separatism, but leaves the devolved governments reliant on money from Westminster and able to blame the same for their issues.

Then let's look at Labour's HoL reform in the 90s, again what a stunning success we see. Or head over to the judiciary and look at the comical creation of a Supreme Court, seemingly because they all watched the West Wing, and then remind ourselves that their proposals advocate involving it even more into the political process.
My point is - constitutional reform is all well and good (and what preceded all of the above was far from perfect) but if you don't think it through properly and do it just because you can you end up with unforeseen negative consequences, some of which nearly brought the British state to an end. If you think that's a good thing (and I have a suspicion you might) then great, but it isn't reasonable to expect people who don't to go along with it.

It'll make more sense starting with your question at the end of your post about the future of the UK. Peter Hitchens and the late Roger Scruton hold the position closest to mine I guess, basically if Scotland wants independence then that should happen and England should not get in the way of it (on the contrary England should be as accommodating as possible, as Hitchens states repeating Ireland wouldn't be good). Where I depart from Hitchens and Scruton is that the UK state should be reconfigured if doing so can hold the UK state together longer. It seems to me a lot of the Scottish nationalist argument is purely a representation argument. The deeper argument Scot nationalists make of basically "we can be an Ireland/Denmark/Norway", also seems true to me, but I don't think a majority goes for that if there's an easier option that gets them most of the way.

NI is in a different category for me, there's just an overwhelming amount of momentum pointing towards a united Ireland (everything from demographics, international treaties establishing a framework, strong US lobbying, lack of will from England to keep it in the UK, NI unionists making poor choices, republicans probably being the most organised/successful political grouping in the UK, etc).

Back to the start of your post. Labour's political calculations were wrong, but it's also a bit irrelevant when assessing the constitutional dimension (as far as the politics goes, Scotland is behaving like a new polity and nationalists tend to dominate those for the first generation, eg African states after independence). No one gets to see what would've happened if there was no devolution. Scotland would've gone into two decades of war in Iraq and Afghanistan they may have been able to say they didn't support ("fptp supresses the will of the Scottish people!"), and then into a Brexit they do say there's no Scottish majority for, and then into a Covid pandemic where they may have been able to say "we had no say in the rules/lockdown/PPE procurement, were dictated to by Westminster and left short changed". There was a 75% majority from a 60% turnout for devolution in Scotland in 1997 (much larger than the 1979 referendum, which was the now infamous 52%/48% split). The idea that could've been ignored and the UK would come out stronger with Scotland having no voice outside of its Westminster seats (and EU parliament seats when the UK was in the EU) doesn't seem plausible to me.

England can't be devolved because there's not much will for it among the English, there's nothing more to it than that. Polling sometimes indicates they want an English parliament, but also says they want less politicians. Devolving regions also doesn't have much support. So it reaches an impasse. One avenue could be regions that want more power have it devolved to them (London?), and the rest simply go without, then if it works that may change minds elsewhere. I see all this as very unlikely though.

It strikes me that if devolution produced an economic benefit for Wales and Scotland or not, would be the sort of thing there's research on, it would be surprising if there's been no effort to quantify it. Before devolution they were subsidised though, so I'm not sure this works as an anti-devolution argument. It's more of a pro-devolution argument surely, "the UK development model has produced an extremely well developed London/South East/South, everywhere else is left behind without the power or resources to build new infrastructure and encourage investment etc, and remains beholden to often poor central planning from Westminster/Whitehall ... therefore devolution"?

Labour reform of the Lords was half hearted in the 90s, because they wanted buy in from all parties, so went with a watered down option to please the Tories (and as I said, Blair wasn't heavily invested in it anyway). It's a different world now, "Get Brexit Done" and all that. Get a majority then bulldoze the platform through is viable now, that method may not produce as lasting results as Labour's reforms in the late 90s though.

[Tichtheid]

Tories duck for cover as Commons probes Michelle Mone’s Covid fortunes
John Crace

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... d-fortunes

[Paddington Bear]

It'll make more sense starting with your question at the end of your post about the future of the UK. Peter Hitchens and the late Roger Scruton hold the position closest to mine I guess, basically if Scotland wants independence then that should happen and England should not get in the way of it (on the contrary England should be as accommodating as possible, as Hitchens states repeating Ireland wouldn't be good). Where I depart from Hitchens and Scruton is that the UK state should be reconfigured if doing so can hold the UK state together longer. It seems to me a lot of the Scottish nationalist argument is purely a representation argument. The deeper argument Scot nationalists make of basically "we can be an Ireland/Denmark/Norway", also seems true to me, but I don't think a majority goes for that if there's an easier option that gets them most of the way.

The problem with this is that the Scottish people were asked exactly this question not so long ago and decided they didn't fancy it, and there's precious little evidence they've changed their mind.

As for keeping the State together, if all functions of State bar basically the military are devolved (correct me if I'm wrong but that seems to be the suggestion in Labour's document, Scotland would be able to conduct foreign policy under their proposals), what's the point? The State is done for anyway at that point so may as well cut our losses. We're either a country or we're not.

Back to the start of your post. Labour's political calculations were wrong, but it's also a bit irrelevant when assessing the constitutional dimension (as far as the politics goes, Scotland is behaving like a new polity and nationalists tend to dominate those for the first generation, eg African states after independence). No one gets to see what would've happened if there was no devolution. Scotland would've gone into two decades of war in Iraq and Afghanistan they may have been able to say they didn't support ("fptp supresses the will of the Scottish people!"), and then into a Brexit they do say there's no Scottish majority for, and then into a Covid pandemic where they may have been able to say "we had no say in the rules/lockdown/PPE procurement, were dictated to by Westminster and left short changed". There was a 75% majority from a 60% turnout for devolution in Scotland in 1997 (much larger than the 1979 referendum, which was the now infamous 52%/48% split). The idea that could've been ignored and the UK would come out stronger with Scotland having no voice outside of its Westminster seats (and EU parliament seats when the UK was in the EU) doesn't seem plausible to me.

England can't be devolved because there's not much will for it among the English, there's nothing more to it than that. Polling sometimes indicates they want an English parliament, but also says they want less politicians. Devolving regions also doesn't have much support. So it reaches an impasse. One avenue could be regions that want more power have it devolved to them (London?), and the rest simply go without, then if it works that may change minds elsewhere. I see all this as very unlikely though.

This is all very binary. The two options weren't status quo or what we have now. My preference is strong city and county councils based on existing, coherent and often ancient identities, with powers to raise funds and run large areas of policy. It absolutely can be done on a local level - see the Channel Islands where authorities the size of a smallish council run very effective services. Iraq and Afghanistan are poor examples for 'fptp supressing the will of the Scottish people' given Scotland was returning sizeable majorities for the governing party at the time.
English people don't want devolution on the terms offered. The regions created by Labour were fake and obviously so, of course they didn't work. Poll people on 'would you like local politicians to decide how to run your schools/which roads to repair etc' and you'd get very different outcomes.

As an aside, the path to Brexit takes in two points of reform that are very much in vogue - PR and devolution.
PR - there's a very strong argument that without their EU parliament seats won by PR UKIP would never have had the funds or prominence to push aggressive Euroscepticism as they did and threaten Cameron's right flank.
Devolution - Cameron only won his 2015 majority on the back of a late Tory surge fuelled by the concern of English voters that the SNP would prop up a Labour minority government. We got to that point because devolution was botched.

Which is really my opening point - Labour reformed Britain off the back of a fag packet and I bet if you'd have gone to a Scottish Labour conference circa 1997 and suggested the latter outcome and the collapse of the party you'd have been laughed out the room. Dicking about with the constitution has second order effects that take a little while to work through the system and I'd really rather we don't see Gordon Brown pulling an Eric Cartman 'Operation Cannot Possibly Fail - A Second Time'.

[_Os_]

It'll make more sense starting with your question at the end of your post about the future of the UK. Peter Hitchens and the late Roger Scruton hold the position closest to mine I guess, basically if Scotland wants independence then that should happen and England should not get in the way of it (on the contrary England should be as accommodating as possible, as Hitchens states repeating Ireland wouldn't be good). Where I depart from Hitchens and Scruton is that the UK state should be reconfigured if doing so can hold the UK state together longer. It seems to me a lot of the Scottish nationalist argument is purely a representation argument. The deeper argument Scot nationalists make of basically "we can be an Ireland/Denmark/Norway", also seems true to me, but I don't think a majority goes for that if there's an easier option that gets them most of the way.

The problem with this is that the Scottish people were asked exactly this question not so long ago and decided they didn't fancy it, and there's precious little evidence they've changed their mind.

As for keeping the State together, if all functions of State bar basically the military are devolved (correct me if I'm wrong but that seems to be the suggestion in Labour's document, Scotland would be able to conduct foreign policy under their proposals), what's the point? The State is done for anyway at that point so may as well cut our losses. We're either a country or we're not.

Hold up, nowhere did I say I support an Indy Scotland or whatever (it's not my fight/problem). The best course of action to me seems to let Scotland decide, which is where your opposition to devolution stops working, not many Scottish people think it has failed and want it all rolled back. The majority seems to be for more devolution.

The foreign policy element is limited to devolved areas, which will turn out to be a bit meaningless. State to state agreements happen on trade, not on which particular layer of government collects taxes. US states will have more foreign policy autonomy. What could happen maybe is the UK signs an agreement for reciprocal extradition with somewhere, and Scotland decides it would rather not be part of that (totally guessing here). I know UK citizens can be pursued from the UK in some US states but not others depending on the circumstances (complex area).

Not buying that a state called the UK which has Scotland in it, will not actually have Scotland in it. I think you're getting hung up on the exact constitutional framework, when it's all just a means to an end.

This is all very binary. The two options weren't status quo or what we have now. My preference is strong city and county councils based on existing, coherent and often ancient identities, with powers to raise funds and run large areas of policy. It absolutely can be done on a local level - see the Channel Islands where authorities the size of a smallish council run very effective services. Iraq and Afghanistan are poor examples for 'fptp supressing the will of the Scottish people' given Scotland was returning sizeable majorities for the governing party at the time.
English people don't want devolution on the terms offered. The regions created by Labour were fake and obviously so, of course they didn't work. Poll people on 'would you like local politicians to decide how to run your schools/which roads to repair etc' and you'd get very different outcomes.

As an aside, the path to Brexit takes in two points of reform that are very much in vogue - PR and devolution.
PR - there's a very strong argument that without their EU parliament seats won by PR UKIP would never have had the funds or prominence to push aggressive Euroscepticism as they did and threaten Cameron's right flank.
Devolution - Cameron only won his 2015 majority on the back of a late Tory surge fuelled by the concern of English voters that the SNP would prop up a Labour minority government. We got to that point because devolution was botched.

Which is really my opening point - Labour reformed Britain off the back of a fag packet and I bet if you'd have gone to a Scottish Labour conference circa 1997 and suggested the latter outcome and the collapse of the party you'd have been laughed out the room. Dicking about with the constitution has second order effects that take a little while to work through the system and I'd really rather we don't see Gordon Brown pulling an Eric Cartman 'Operation Cannot Possibly Fail - A Second Time'.

Labour's plans for England seem to include more powers for councils. Again, the Tories could've done this if they had the will, they commissioned a report by Heseltine before the 2015 general election which recommended it (and from memory that report referenced another report from the 1960s or 1970s which made similar recommendations). It does seem to be a pattern in England when what needs to be done is known for half a century, nothing is done, then in the rare times Labour get in they at least try something then they're attacked for it.

I think your criticism of devolution doesn't really work when the counterfactual is thought through fully. If Scotland had never had devolution. The reason Iraq/Afghanistan doesn't come up in Scottish debate as something they were forced into, is because they supported Blair/Labour under the Westminster fptp system, but also under the Scottish pr/additional member system. Devolution has removed a lot (but not all) of the representation argument, without devolution there would still be minimum 75% who wanted devolution in 1997 and probably a lot more too. Maybe enough people to force the SNP into seats even in a Westminster election (without any pr system in the background giving them a platform), that's what an existential question did to NI in Westminster elections. You seem to be saying there was another way of doing Scottish devolution maybe? Not sure how without a Scottish parliament something the Scots have an "ancient memory" of more than the people of Leicester or wherever have regarding their local council. There's every chance without devolution Scottish politics could be more toxic, the binary existential question is the key driver, wrong to think that trying to supress representation supresses the binary question (especially so when that question is fundamentally about representation).

Labour were foolish to think devolution would give them immediate political advantage, they assumed pr meant there couldn't be a majority party. They only had to look at SA to see in a new polity a nationalist party can get a majority under pr, a younger Os did point this out in the 2000s before SNP growth, he was dismissed with not that concealed racist contempt ("yeah maybe in Africa, whatever"). For me it's about giving Scots what they want, not value judgements on what they decide to do with it.

It is funny to me that the 2016 referendum is touted as "the first time people had their voices heard" (which effectively used pure pr), and UKIP used EU elections to get protest votes they couldn't hope to do anything with in a Westminster vote using fptp as you say. Then all this is used as example of why pr is bad. If they had a voice earlier somewhere that mattered to Westminster (which means in Westminster) maybe they would've been exposed sooner. There's also a case that the issue of the EU moderated the far right. The BNP were knocking on the door of 1 million votes mainly from England in the 2004 and 2009 EU elections, they got 500k votes in the 2010 general election when UKIP got 900k votes but ran 200+ more candidates. All it takes is a few wealthy-ish funders and a party to the right of the Tories starts doing well, even the crude openly fascist and racist BNP could do it running in half the constituencies and competing against both the Tories and UKIP/Farage in his prime (and other smaller far right formations like the English Democrats), in an election the incumbent Labour government was probably going to lose. For the entire 80 years before UKIP beat the BNP (Farage used to boast about taking the BNP's voters) with the anti-EU stuff, the default mode of the English far right was fascism/extreme racism (their connections to SA were always to the fringe parties and groups that were extreme even in the apartheid SA)/violent paramilitaries (some of which became banned terrorist organisations)/leaders that had Tory connections in their past. The only element Farage retained was the leadership core and funders having Tory backgrounds. Cameron's problem was that a lot of the Tory base agrees with this stuff (Reform hitting 9%-ish in a few polls now), and he shit himself.

[dpedin]

Tories duck for cover as Commons probes Michelle Mone’s Covid fortunes
John Crace

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... d-fortunes

This has the potential to blow the Tories off the planet for many decades. There is obviously a lot of squirming going on and those involved are already trying tho shift blame ie Hancok, Gove, etc. Many Tories and their contacts have made millions illegally from the PPE and testing fiascos and it will all blow up in their faces - Randox, Immensa, Medpro, Pestfix, etc. Even the more 'upfront' deals ie £37B for TT&T and the role of Serco CEO Robert Soames a Tory will come under the spotlight if for nothing else their sheer incompetence, over pricing and inability to deliver. It is going to drag them all down and hopefully a few of them to jail.

[Paddington Bear]

Hold up, nowhere did I say I support an Indy Scotland or whatever (it's not my fight/problem). The best course of action to me seems to let Scotland decide, which is where your opposition to devolution stops working, not many Scottish people think it has failed and want it all rolled back. The majority seems to be for more devolution.

The foreign policy element is limited to devolved areas, which will turn out to be a bit meaningless. State to state agreements happen on trade, not on which particular layer of government collects taxes. US states will have more foreign policy autonomy. What could happen maybe is the UK signs an agreement for reciprocal extradition with somewhere, and Scotland decides it would rather not be part of that (totally guessing here). I know UK citizens can be pursued from the UK in some US states but not others depending on the circumstances (complex area).

Not buying that a state called the UK which has Scotland in it, will not actually have Scotland in it. I think you're getting hung up on the exact constitutional framework, when it's all just a means to an end.

Devolving just about everything is the end of the Union sooner or later - this is why it is a bad idea! Not sure how many times I can keep rephrasing this point. We are either a country or we are not.

I think your criticism of devolution doesn't really work when the counterfactual is thought through fully. If Scotland had never had devolution. The reason Iraq/Afghanistan doesn't come up in Scottish debate as something they were forced into, is because they supported Blair/Labour under the Westminster fptp system, but also under the Scottish pr/additional member system. Devolution has removed a lot (but not all) of the representation argument, without devolution there would still be minimum 75% who wanted devolution in 1997 and probably a lot more too. Maybe enough people to force the SNP into seats even in a Westminster election (without any pr system in the background giving them a platform), that's what an existential question did to NI in Westminster elections. You seem to be saying there was another way of doing Scottish devolution maybe? Not sure how without a Scottish parliament something the Scots have an "ancient memory" of more than the people of Leicester or wherever have regarding their local council. There's every chance without devolution Scottish politics could be more toxic, the binary existential question is the key driver, wrong to think that trying to supress representation supresses the binary question (especially so when that question is fundamentally about representation).

Except that isn't the counterfactual I posed and my criticism was of Labour's tendency to not think through the effects of constitutional change rather than constitutional change itself. Devolving powers to much stronger city councils in Glasgow and Edinburgh (and Leeds and Manchester and and), and to the Highlands & Islands Council (and Cumbria and Devon etc) would have created the local control away from Westminster that I think we agree is/was necessary without fundamentally undermining the Union, which is what has happened. Ancient memory was a reference to the failed English regions as I'm sure you knew from reading but have misrepresented.

I'm not quite sure on the 'Scottish politics could have been more toxic' - the worst case would be that the system had failed, 35-50% of Scots were voting for Nationalist parties and demanding independence. Oh.

[Tichtheid]

Hold up, nowhere did I say I support an Indy Scotland or whatever (it's not my fight/problem). The best course of action to me seems to let Scotland decide, which is where your opposition to devolution stops working, not many Scottish people think it has failed and want it all rolled back. The majority seems to be for more devolution.

The foreign policy element is limited to devolved areas, which will turn out to be a bit meaningless. State to state agreements happen on trade, not on which particular layer of government collects taxes. US states will have more foreign policy autonomy. What could happen maybe is the UK signs an agreement for reciprocal extradition with somewhere, and Scotland decides it would rather not be part of that (totally guessing here). I know UK citizens can be pursued from the UK in some US states but not others depending on the circumstances (complex area).

Not buying that a state called the UK which has Scotland in it, will not actually have Scotland in it. I think you're getting hung up on the exact constitutional framework, when it's all just a means to an end.

Devolving just about everything is the end of the Union sooner or later - this is why it is a bad idea! Not sure how many times I can keep rephrasing this point. We are either a country or we are not.

I think your criticism of devolution doesn't really work when the counterfactual is thought through fully. If Scotland had never had devolution. The reason Iraq/Afghanistan doesn't come up in Scottish debate as something they were forced into, is because they supported Blair/Labour under the Westminster fptp system, but also under the Scottish pr/additional member system. Devolution has removed a lot (but not all) of the representation argument, without devolution there would still be minimum 75% who wanted devolution in 1997 and probably a lot more too. Maybe enough people to force the SNP into seats even in a Westminster election (without any pr system in the background giving them a platform), that's what an existential question did to NI in Westminster elections. You seem to be saying there was another way of doing Scottish devolution maybe? Not sure how without a Scottish parliament something the Scots have an "ancient memory" of more than the people of Leicester or wherever have regarding their local council. There's every chance without devolution Scottish politics could be more toxic, the binary existential question is the key driver, wrong to think that trying to supress representation supresses the binary question (especially so when that question is fundamentally about representation).

Except that isn't the counterfactual I posed and my criticism was of Labour's tendency to not think through the effects of constitutional change rather than constitutional change itself. Devolving powers to much stronger city councils in Glasgow and Edinburgh (and Leeds and Manchester and and), and to the Highlands & Islands Council (and Cumbria and Devon etc) would have created the local control away from Westminster that I think we agree is/was necessary without fundamentally undermining the Union, which is what has happened. Ancient memory was a reference to the failed English regions as I'm sure you knew from reading but have misrepresented.

I'm not quite sure on the 'Scottish politics could have been more toxic' - the worst case would be that the system had failed, 35-50% of Scots were voting for Nationalist parties and demanding independence. Oh.

This is a good article on why the electorate in Scotland abandoned Labour - there was no way the Tories were going to benefit from the exodus. I think the article doesn't make enough of the Clown Car that was Scottish Labour in the fifteen years or so after devolution

If voters in England really want to save the Union, they are going have to stop voting as they do

https://archive.ph/2QZZ7

[Paddington Bear]

Hold up, nowhere did I say I support an Indy Scotland or whatever (it's not my fight/problem). The best course of action to me seems to let Scotland decide, which is where your opposition to devolution stops working, not many Scottish people think it has failed and want it all rolled back. The majority seems to be for more devolution.

The foreign policy element is limited to devolved areas, which will turn out to be a bit meaningless. State to state agreements happen on trade, not on which particular layer of government collects taxes. US states will have more foreign policy autonomy. What could happen maybe is the UK signs an agreement for reciprocal extradition with somewhere, and Scotland decides it would rather not be part of that (totally guessing here). I know UK citizens can be pursued from the UK in some US states but not others depending on the circumstances (complex area).

Not buying that a state called the UK which has Scotland in it, will not actually have Scotland in it. I think you're getting hung up on the exact constitutional framework, when it's all just a means to an end.

Devolving just about everything is the end of the Union sooner or later - this is why it is a bad idea! Not sure how many times I can keep rephrasing this point. We are either a country or we are not.

I think your criticism of devolution doesn't really work when the counterfactual is thought through fully. If Scotland had never had devolution. The reason Iraq/Afghanistan doesn't come up in Scottish debate as something they were forced into, is because they supported Blair/Labour under the Westminster fptp system, but also under the Scottish pr/additional member system. Devolution has removed a lot (but not all) of the representation argument, without devolution there would still be minimum 75% who wanted devolution in 1997 and probably a lot more too. Maybe enough people to force the SNP into seats even in a Westminster election (without any pr system in the background giving them a platform), that's what an existential question did to NI in Westminster elections. You seem to be saying there was another way of doing Scottish devolution maybe? Not sure how without a Scottish parliament something the Scots have an "ancient memory" of more than the people of Leicester or wherever have regarding their local council. There's every chance without devolution Scottish politics could be more toxic, the binary existential question is the key driver, wrong to think that trying to supress representation supresses the binary question (especially so when that question is fundamentally about representation).

Except that isn't the counterfactual I posed and my criticism was of Labour's tendency to not think through the effects of constitutional change rather than constitutional change itself. Devolving powers to much stronger city councils in Glasgow and Edinburgh (and Leeds and Manchester and and), and to the Highlands & Islands Council (and Cumbria and Devon etc) would have created the local control away from Westminster that I think we agree is/was necessary without fundamentally undermining the Union, which is what has happened. Ancient memory was a reference to the failed English regions as I'm sure you knew from reading but have misrepresented.

I'm not quite sure on the 'Scottish politics could have been more toxic' - the worst case would be that the system had failed, 35-50% of Scots were voting for Nationalist parties and demanding independence. Oh.

This is a good article on why the electorate in Scotland abandoned Labour - there was no way the Tories were going to benefit from the exodus. I think the article doesn't make enough of the Clown Car that was Scottish Labour in the fifteen years or so after devolution

If voters in England really want to save the Union, they are going have to stop voting as they do

https://archive.ph/2QZZ7

It's a good article, thanks for posting. I've always enjoyed Tom Devine's work. It does back up a lot of what I've posted, which always helps!

[Biffer]

What's the Union actually for, other than reminiscing about Empire and World War II?

[Biffer]

Hold up, nowhere did I say I support an Indy Scotland or whatever (it's not my fight/problem). The best course of action to me seems to let Scotland decide, which is where your opposition to devolution stops working, not many Scottish people think it has failed and want it all rolled back. The majority seems to be for more devolution.

The foreign policy element is limited to devolved areas, which will turn out to be a bit meaningless. State to state agreements happen on trade, not on which particular layer of government collects taxes. US states will have more foreign policy autonomy. What could happen maybe is the UK signs an agreement for reciprocal extradition with somewhere, and Scotland decides it would rather not be part of that (totally guessing here). I know UK citizens can be pursued from the UK in some US states but not others depending on the circumstances (complex area).

Not buying that a state called the UK which has Scotland in it, will not actually have Scotland in it. I think you're getting hung up on the exact constitutional framework, when it's all just a means to an end.

Devolving just about everything is the end of the Union sooner or later - this is why it is a bad idea! Not sure how many times I can keep rephrasing this point. We are either a country or we are not.

I think your criticism of devolution doesn't really work when the counterfactual is thought through fully. If Scotland had never had devolution. The reason Iraq/Afghanistan doesn't come up in Scottish debate as something they were forced into, is because they supported Blair/Labour under the Westminster fptp system, but also under the Scottish pr/additional member system. Devolution has removed a lot (but not all) of the representation argument, without devolution there would still be minimum 75% who wanted devolution in 1997 and probably a lot more too. Maybe enough people to force the SNP into seats even in a Westminster election (without any pr system in the background giving them a platform), that's what an existential question did to NI in Westminster elections. You seem to be saying there was another way of doing Scottish devolution maybe? Not sure how without a Scottish parliament something the Scots have an "ancient memory" of more than the people of Leicester or wherever have regarding their local council. There's every chance without devolution Scottish politics could be more toxic, the binary existential question is the key driver, wrong to think that trying to supress representation supresses the binary question (especially so when that question is fundamentally about representation).

Except that isn't the counterfactual I posed and my criticism was of Labour's tendency to not think through the effects of constitutional change rather than constitutional change itself. Devolving powers to much stronger city councils in Glasgow and Edinburgh (and Leeds and Manchester and and), and to the Highlands & Islands Council (and Cumbria and Devon etc) would have created the local control away from Westminster that I think we agree is/was necessary without fundamentally undermining the Union, which is what has happened. Ancient memory was a reference to the failed English regions as I'm sure you knew from reading but have misrepresented.

I'm not quite sure on the 'Scottish politics could have been more toxic' - the worst case would be that the system had failed, 35-50% of Scots were voting for Nationalist parties and demanding independence. Oh.

Scottish politics could be very much more toxic, particularly if it had split in Glasgow along sectarian lines, which some people would have been happy to see. Devolving lots of power to Glasgow could have resulted in echoing some of the problems in Belfast, it's not as if it's a city without a significant sectarian divide.

[JM2K6]

Not sure about this "more devolution makes a country meaningless" thing. It's not like there's no examples in history of heavily devolved government being the de facto state of the country.

I'm very much out of my depth in the weeds of this discussion but this:

It is funny to me that the 2016 referendum is touted as "the first time people had their voices heard" (which effectively used pure pr), and UKIP used EU elections to get protest votes they couldn't hope to do anything with in a Westminster vote using fptp as you say. Then all this is used as example of why pr is bad. If they had a voice earlier somewhere that mattered to Westminster (which means in Westminster) maybe they would've been exposed sooner. There's also a case that the issue of the EU moderated the far right. The BNP were knocking on the door of 1 million votes mainly from England in the 2004 and 2009 EU elections, they got 500k votes in the 2010 general election when UKIP got 900k votes but ran 200+ more candidates. All it takes is a few wealthy-ish funders and a party to the right of the Tories starts doing well, even the crude openly fascist and racist BNP could do it running in half the constituencies and competing against both the Tories and UKIP/Farage in his prime (and other smaller far right formations like the English Democrats), in an election the incumbent Labour government was probably going to lose. For the entire 80 years before UKIP beat the BNP (Farage used to boast about taking the BNP's voters) with the anti-EU stuff, the default mode of the English far right was fascism/extreme racism (their connections to SA were always to the fringe parties and groups that were extreme even in the apartheid SA)/violent paramilitaries (some of which became banned terrorist organisations)/leaders that had Tory connections in their past. The only element Farage retained was the leadership core and funders having Tory backgrounds. Cameron's problem was that a lot of the Tory base agrees with this stuff (Reform hitting 9%-ish in a few polls now), and he shit himself.

is something a few of us have been banging on about for a while. PR means having to deal with the viewpoints you find unpalatable but have taken root among the electorate and should be given appropriate representation. It's not a negative that the BNP or whoever would win a few seats. It's a negative that because the system prevents this, they instead have an outsized impact on one of the main parties fishing for those votes.

[Raggs]

Not sure about this "more devolution makes a country meaningless" thing. It's not like there's no examples in history of heavily devolved government being the de facto state of the country.

I'm very much out of my depth in the weeds of this discussion but this:

It is funny to me that the 2016 referendum is touted as "the first time people had their voices heard" (which effectively used pure pr), and UKIP used EU elections to get protest votes they couldn't hope to do anything with in a Westminster vote using fptp as you say. Then all this is used as example of why pr is bad. If they had a voice earlier somewhere that mattered to Westminster (which means in Westminster) maybe they would've been exposed sooner. There's also a case that the issue of the EU moderated the far right. The BNP were knocking on the door of 1 million votes mainly from England in the 2004 and 2009 EU elections, they got 500k votes in the 2010 general election when UKIP got 900k votes but ran 200+ more candidates. All it takes is a few wealthy-ish funders and a party to the right of the Tories starts doing well, even the crude openly fascist and racist BNP could do it running in half the constituencies and competing against both the Tories and UKIP/Farage in his prime (and other smaller far right formations like the English Democrats), in an election the incumbent Labour government was probably going to lose. For the entire 80 years before UKIP beat the BNP (Farage used to boast about taking the BNP's voters) with the anti-EU stuff, the default mode of the English far right was fascism/extreme racism (their connections to SA were always to the fringe parties and groups that were extreme even in the apartheid SA)/violent paramilitaries (some of which became banned terrorist organisations)/leaders that had Tory connections in their past. The only element Farage retained was the leadership core and funders having Tory backgrounds. Cameron's problem was that a lot of the Tory base agrees with this stuff (Reform hitting 9%-ish in a few polls now), and he shit himself.

is something a few of us have been banging on about for a while. PR means having to deal with the viewpoints you find unpalatable but have taken root among the electorate and should be given appropriate representation. It's not a negative that the BNP or whoever would win a few seats. It's a negative that because the system prevents this, they instead have an outsized impact on one of the main parties fishing for those votes.

The problem comes when a government needs to be formed and the largest party has to pander to those small parties in order to form a government. They have to actually give them concessions, rather than lip service, otherwise those smaller parties can pull out and collapse the government requiring more elections.

[SaintK]

Hancock gooooone! Says he won't be standing for reselection. Jumped befeore the press published that fact that his local association wanted him out

Matt Hancock announced he would not stand for parliament after local Tories wrote to the chief whip saying he was “not fit” to represent their constituency, the i’s Kate Maltby reports. The letter was due to be published tomorrow.

[Tichtheid]

Baroness Mone has, by her own actions alone, had the Con party whip removed, the party itself did nothing.

At PMQs Sunak says he is "shocked" to hear that Mone has apparently somehow found £20M of taxpayers' money in her own bank account. I think she is denying that and any wrongdoing whatsoever, but standing down from the HoL can mean that a peer is no longer subject to scrutiny or required to declare interests.

However, if anything is a bit whiffy it can be investigated and books will have to be opened and looked at.

Sunak was Chancellor when that money went to Test & Trace companies - he didn't know where it was going?

[dpedin]

Baroness Mone has, by her own actions alone, had the Con party whip removed, the party itself did nothing.

At PMQs Sunak says he is "shocked" to hear that Mone has apparently somehow found £20M of taxpayers' money in her own bank account. I think she is denying that and any wrongdoing whatsoever, but standing down from the HoL can mean that a peer is no longer subject to scrutiny or required to declare interests.

However, if anything is a bit whiffy it can be investigated and books will have to be opened and looked at.

Sunak was Chancellor when that money went to Test & Trace companies - he didn't know where it was going?

Whole thing stinks and they all know it. I expect the rats in the sack to start eating each other pretty soon as the spectre of criminal prosecution raises it head. Sunak is knee deep in all this shit hence his desperate desire to keep anyone with dirt on him happy and the numerous U-turns he has made so far. There will be lots more shit to come as more investigative journalists now break cover and follow the money back to the Tories who pushed their mates through the VIP lane. Genie is out of the bottle!

[GogLais]

Not sure about this "more devolution makes a country meaningless" thing. It's not like there's no examples in history of heavily devolved government being the de facto state of the country.

I'm very much out of my depth in the weeds of this discussion but this:

It is funny to me that the 2016 referendum is touted as "the first time people had their voices heard" (which effectively used pure pr), and UKIP used EU elections to get protest votes they couldn't hope to do anything with in a Westminster vote using fptp as you say. Then all this is used as example of why pr is bad. If they had a voice earlier somewhere that mattered to Westminster (which means in Westminster) maybe they would've been exposed sooner. There's also a case that the issue of the EU moderated the far right. The BNP were knocking on the door of 1 million votes mainly from England in the 2004 and 2009 EU elections, they got 500k votes in the 2010 general election when UKIP got 900k votes but ran 200+ more candidates. All it takes is a few wealthy-ish funders and a party to the right of the Tories starts doing well, even the crude openly fascist and racist BNP could do it running in half the constituencies and competing against both the Tories and UKIP/Farage in his prime (and other smaller far right formations like the English Democrats), in an election the incumbent Labour government was probably going to lose. For the entire 80 years before UKIP beat the BNP (Farage used to boast about taking the BNP's voters) with the anti-EU stuff, the default mode of the English far right was fascism/extreme racism (their connections to SA were always to the fringe parties and groups that were extreme even in the apartheid SA)/violent paramilitaries (some of which became banned terrorist organisations)/leaders that had Tory connections in their past. The only element Farage retained was the leadership core and funders having Tory backgrounds. Cameron's problem was that a lot of the Tory base agrees with this stuff (Reform hitting 9%-ish in a few polls now), and he shit himself.

is something a few of us have been banging on about for a while. PR means having to deal with the viewpoints you find unpalatable but have taken root among the electorate and should be given appropriate representation. It's not a negative that the BNP or whoever would win a few seats. It's a negative that because the system prevents this, they instead have an outsized impact on one of the main parties fishing for those votes.

The problem comes when a government needs to be formed and the largest party has to pander to those small parties in order to form a government. They have to actually give them concessions, rather than lip service, otherwise those smaller parties can pull out and collapse the government requiring more elections.

There are various forms of PR and with the notable exceptions of Israel and Italy they seem to provide reasonably stable governments. Here the government has to make concessions to the right wing of its own party.

[C69]

Sunak was "shocked" when he heard about Mone.

Well the stupid cnut was the only one shocked.
They are now a fucking parody

[GogLais]

Baroness Mone has, by her own actions alone, had the Con party whip removed, the party itself did nothing.

At PMQs Sunak says he is "shocked" to hear that Mone has apparently somehow found £20M of taxpayers' money in her own bank account. I think she is denying that and any wrongdoing whatsoever, but standing down from the HoL can mean that a peer is no longer subject to scrutiny or required to declare interests.

However, if anything is a bit whiffy it can be investigated and books will have to be opened and looked at.

Sunak was Chancellor when that money went to Test & Trace companies - he didn't know where it was going?

Is standing down from the HoL an official thing or is she just saying she won’t be turning up for a while? I can’t believe that her actions can’t be scrutinised by someone even though she’s cleared off.

[Simian]

It'll make more sense starting with your question at the end of your post about the future of the UK. Peter Hitchens and the late Roger Scruton hold the position closest to mine I guess, basically if Scotland wants independence then that should happen and England should not get in the way of it (on the contrary England should be as accommodating as possible, as Hitchens states repeating Ireland wouldn't be good). Where I depart from Hitchens and Scruton is that the UK state should be reconfigured if doing so can hold the UK state together longer. It seems to me a lot of the Scottish nationalist argument is purely a representation argument. The deeper argument Scot nationalists make of basically "we can be an Ireland/Denmark/Norway", also seems true to me, but I don't think a majority goes for that if there's an easier option that gets them most of the way.

The problem with this is that the Scottish people were asked exactly this question not so long ago and decided they didn't fancy it, and there's precious little evidence they've changed their mind.

https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/yes-pulls-a ... ns-support

[Simian]

oops. double post

[fishfoodie]

Baroness Mone has, by her own actions alone, had the Con party whip removed, the party itself did nothing.

At PMQs Sunak says he is "shocked" to hear that Mone has apparently somehow found £20M of taxpayers' money in her own bank account. I think she is denying that and any wrongdoing whatsoever, but standing down from the HoL can mean that a peer is no longer subject to scrutiny or required to declare interests.

However, if anything is a bit whiffy it can be investigated and books will have to be opened and looked at.

Sunak was Chancellor when that money went to Test & Trace companies - he didn't know where it was going?

Whole thing stinks and they all know it. I expect the rats in the sack to start eating each other pretty soon as the spectre of criminal prosecution raises it head. Sunak is knee deep in all this shit hence his desperate desire to keep anyone with dirt on him happy and the numerous U-turns he has made so far. There will be lots more shit to come as more investigative journalists now break cover and follow the money back to the Tories who pushed their mates through the VIP lane. Genie is out of the bottle!

The UK has a Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee; in Ireland, ours has on occasion, investigated incidents where there was suspected misuse of taxpayers money; & it has the power, to instigate a full police investigation.

I'm at a loss as to why the UK Public has just ignored the complete absence of any investigation, let alone prosecution !

It's plain as a pikestaff there was abuse of the procurement system thru the pandemic; it's not surprising, as even in a system run by good faith actors, you'll get fraud in circumstances like that; but the scale of the abuse in the UK (that we can see), is mind boggling.I think if you had a proper investigation, you could end up with dozens of Politicians going to prison.

[Tichtheid]

Baroness Mone has, by her own actions alone, had the Con party whip removed, the party itself did nothing.

At PMQs Sunak says he is "shocked" to hear that Mone has apparently somehow found £20M of taxpayers' money in her own bank account. I think she is denying that and any wrongdoing whatsoever, but standing down from the HoL can mean that a peer is no longer subject to scrutiny or required to declare interests.

However, if anything is a bit whiffy it can be investigated and books will have to be opened and looked at.

Sunak was Chancellor when that money went to Test & Trace companies - he didn't know where it was going?

Is standing down from the HoL an official thing or is she just saying she won’t be turning up for a while? I can’t believe that her actions can’t be scrutinised by someone even though she’s cleared off.

From yesterday's Gruaniad


Mone’s leave of absence means she will not attend sittings or debates, vote on proceedings or be able to claim any allowance.

She will also no longer be bound by parliamentary rules to declare her interests, including any directorships, shareholdings and non-financial interests.

However, a leave of absence request can be blocked by the Lords’ standards commissioners. The watchdog is already investigating Mone over multiple “potential breaches” of the Lords’ code of conduct.

The code states that if a peer takes a formal break “in order to avoid an impending investigation (or while an investigation is under way), the request may be refused”. If a peer is already on leave of absence when placed under investigation, then that can also be ended immediately.

The Guardian has contacted the Lords standards commissioners to clarify whether they had been consulted.


https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... e-of-lords

[GogLais]

Baroness Mone has, by her own actions alone, had the Con party whip removed, the party itself did nothing.

At PMQs Sunak says he is "shocked" to hear that Mone has apparently somehow found £20M of taxpayers' money in her own bank account. I think she is denying that and any wrongdoing whatsoever, but standing down from the HoL can mean that a peer is no longer subject to scrutiny or required to declare interests.

However, if anything is a bit whiffy it can be investigated and books will have to be opened and looked at.

Sunak was Chancellor when that money went to Test & Trace companies - he didn't know where it was going?

Is standing down from the HoL an official thing or is she just saying she won’t be turning up for a while? I can’t believe that her actions can’t be scrutinised by someone even though she’s cleared off.

From yesterday's Gruaniad


Mone’s leave of absence means she will not attend sittings or debates, vote on proceedings or be able to claim any allowance.

She will also no longer be bound by parliamentary rules to declare her interests, including any directorships, shareholdings and non-financial interests.

However, a leave of absence request can be blocked by the Lords’ standards commissioners. The watchdog is already investigating Mone over multiple “potential breaches” of the Lords’ code of conduct.

The code states that if a peer takes a formal break “in order to avoid an impending investigation (or while an investigation is under way), the request may be refused”. If a peer is already on leave of absence when placed under investigation, then that can also be ended immediately.

The Guardian has contacted the Lords standards commissioners to clarify whether they had been consulted.


https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... e-of-lords

Thanks for that.

[Camroc2]

Rather they got us away from fptp. Only belarus still use fptp in Europe.

I’d guess we’re the only country in Europe with an entirety appointed/hereditary part of the legislature.

We have at the moment:

- a Head of State appointed just because he was first to come down the right birth channel
- a PM who was picked by his Tory MP mates in HoC
- an Upper House filled by those appointed by current and previous PMs and Queen/King and Bishops appointed by the Church of England only

Although all 'by the rules' of your democracy whichever way you look at it there does seem to be a bit of a democratic deficit in the UK and I can fully understand those who need change in our democratic processes.

And that also ignores the entire sectarianism surrounding the Established CofE.

[geordie_6]

Julian Knight has had the whip removed with "immediate effect", following an as yet unspecified complaint to the Met.


www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63897387

[tabascoboy]

Our glorious right wing press...

[JM2K6]

A short profile on Nick Timothy and what he's currently getting up to.

You'll "enjoy" his activity in response to this tweet...

[Tichtheid]

Our glorious right wing press...

He's never been the sharpest tool in the shed, has Quentin.

A tool, certainly, but with a very dull edge.

[Torquemada 1420]

FFS
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63905505

Rules that forced banks to legally separate retail banking from riskier investment operations will be reviewed.

So a return to banks taking huge risks and whilst it works, keeping the profits (as well as paying f**k all tax) but if it all goes sh*t shaped (again), the public purse is used to bail them out (again).

package of more than 30 reforms will "cut red tape" and "turbocharge growth".

No. It f**king won't because the whole root of the problem is UK banks never invest into business for long term growth, they loan for short term, maximum extraction and then pull the plug at the first sign of distress.

[dpedin]

FFS
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63905505

Rules that forced banks to legally separate retail banking from riskier investment operations will be reviewed.

So a return to banks taking huge risks and whilst it works, keeping the profits (as well as paying f**k all tax) but if it all goes sh*t shaped (again), the public purse is used to bail them out (again).

package of more than 30 reforms will "cut red tape" and "turbocharge growth".

No. It f**king won't because the whole root of the problem is UK banks never invest into business for long term growth, they loan for short term, maximum extraction and then pull the plug at the first sign of distress.

Totally agree! There will be a short term cocaine rush - I use the term advisedly - after the relaxation of the rules which the Tories will claim as a benefit for us all then the crooked bankers with the loaded dice start gambling with our money again only to run off once it all goes Pete Tong. The Tories really are desperate to use the next two years to line their pockets of that of their banker/venture fund crooks before they are kicked out of office. Feckin bastards!

[TB63]

Add on top, 85% of the coal is to be exported. Its not coking coal, the UK doesn't have any coking coal seams...

[Paddington Bear]

I struggle to get worked up about coal mining/north sea gas etc. If there are to be fossil fuels used, and they will be for at least a decade unless we fancy societal collapse, how about we make money off it to better our society rather than others doing the same?

[Jock42]

Our glorious right wing press...

There seems to be a large serf mentality which appears to have got worse since HMG has announced they plan to use the military to break strikes. Rather than targeting their ire at the government(s) for forcing people into this situation and being the ones on the verge of cancelling Christmas leave for the troops they blame the worker. I can't get my head around it, perhaps it's my bias that we've threatened industrial action.

[yermum]

I struggle to get worked up about coal mining/north sea gas etc. If there are to be fossil fuels used, and they will be for at least a decade unless we fancy societal collapse, how about we make money off it to better our society rather than others doing the same?

we can all fiddle as the planet burns I guess.

[Slick]

I struggle to get worked up about coal mining/north sea gas etc. If there are to be fossil fuels used, and they will be for at least a decade unless we fancy societal collapse, how about we make money off it to better our society rather than others doing the same?

There is so much disinformation about that I really don't know what to think about this. I thought that one really good reason for it was that we import all our coal so this would be environmentally and economically better. But now I see we are exporting a load of it, but I've also seen people saying this in nonsense.

[Slick]

I struggle to get worked up about coal mining/north sea gas etc. If there are to be fossil fuels used, and they will be for at least a decade unless we fancy societal collapse, how about we make money off it to better our society rather than others doing the same?

we can all fiddle as the planet burns I guess.

What's your immediate solution?

[Paddington Bear]

I struggle to get worked up about coal mining/north sea gas etc. If there are to be fossil fuels used, and they will be for at least a decade unless we fancy societal collapse, how about we make money off it to better our society rather than others doing the same?

we can all fiddle as the planet burns I guess.

Unless one of our Unis makes a drastic technological breakthrough, nothing we do in Britain makes a meaningful difference to climate change. We're not big enough.