EPTMore broadly, the seemingly unstoppable rise of these demagogues across the anglosphere is super scary. I still can't believe there was a huge swing towards Boris. It makes me very apprehensive for 2020 in the US, and really the whole basis of democracy going forward. Deliberation and debate clearly stand no chance at all against Facebook memes.
UK Politics Mega-thread - Page 578
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Belisarius
Australia6233 Posts
More broadly, the seemingly unstoppable rise of these demagogues across the anglosphere is super scary. I still can't believe there was a huge swing towards Boris. It makes me very apprehensive for 2020 in the US, and really the whole basis of democracy going forward. Deliberation and debate clearly stand no chance at all against Facebook memes. | ||
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BerserkSword
United States2123 Posts
However, are the results really that surprising? Is this really that far from the norm? Tony Blair has been the only Labour politician to be able to win a general election in the last 4 decades or so. Blair was known to be markedly different - more centrist - than the usual Labour positions. Perhaps that's why he was able to do what the other Labour leaders failed at? If you go back further then only two Labour politicians were capable of winning general elections in the last 7 decades. That's insane, imo. To me, it highlights a strong tendency of the British population. | ||
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Sr18
Netherlands1141 Posts
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BerserkSword
United States2123 Posts
On December 14 2019 17:06 Sr18 wrote: Also, the conservatives didn't win the popular vote. Under a different voting system, they would need to form a coalition to govern. The large conservative victory is not a sign that they have the support of the majority of the British population. The sources I see say that conservatives got significantly more popular votes than labour. Is that not relevant? | ||
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
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Sr18
Netherlands1141 Posts
On December 14 2019 17:13 BerserkSword wrote: The sources I see say that conservatives got significantly more popular votes than labour. Is that not relevant? If you just compare the conservatives and labour, sure. But I was responding to a poster that was despairing how demagogues were gaining popularity in certain western countries. And my point was: the majority of the British population voted for other parties, so keep that in mind before you despair too much. | ||
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Maenander
Germany4926 Posts
On December 14 2019 18:43 Sr18 wrote: If you just compare the conservatives and labour, sure. But I was responding to a poster that was despairing how demagogues were gaining popularity in certain western countries. And my point was: the majority of the British population voted for other parties, so keep that in mind before you despair too much. The British electoral system makes it pretty hard for the Tories to lose control, no wonder BoJo calls it the best democracy in the World. The election was a walk in the park for him, after all. I am very glad we don't have a similar system in Germany, otherwise the conservatives would be pretty much invincible, probably even more so than in the UK. | ||
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AllenRami
1 Post
User was banned for this post. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26078 Posts
On December 14 2019 13:44 BerserkSword wrote: I havent really followed recent British politics and this year's election. However, are the results really that surprising? Is this really that far from the norm? Tony Blair has been the only Labour politician to be able to win a general election in the last 4 decades or so. Blair was known to be markedly different - more centrist - than the usual Labour positions. Perhaps that's why he was able to do what the other Labour leaders failed at? If you go back further then only two Labour politicians were capable of winning general elections in the last 7 decades. That's insane, imo. To me, it highlights a strong tendency of the British population. Blair’s Labour had a ton of other strengths too outside of being centrist A tight ship was run internally, there was a pretty coherent front made by Blair, Gordon Brown and other notable Labour figures. I’m not a particular fan of political spin, but there is something to be said for coherence and Alastair Campbell did a good job in doing this. Speaking of notable Labour figures, there were also other notable Labour figures. I followed politics slightly more closely then but I can still remember Blairs cabinets very well and who did what, much better than recent Conservative governments and a million miles better than recent Labour Shadow Cabinets. Gordon Brown everyone knew was de facto number two and was basically if not universally liked, almost universally regarded as extremely competent. Plus he did one job, he was the Chancellor for a long time. I’d rather see that than the chopping and changing that so often occurs between big important cabinet roles. Blair was just a better leader than anyone else has been since in UK politics. Both externally and crucially, internally. By externally I refer to the outward projection to the electorate and how that’s received. Kind of analogous to charisma, that sense that people feel you can cut it as a leader. Blair certainly had that, although I don’t think he’s streets ahead in that regard. Internal leadership, his actual leadership of the party he represented was what Blair was streets ahead at, and what Corbyn was extremely bad at in particular. He had people singing from the same hymn sheet without being entirely dictatorial about dissent. He could both crack the whip when required but also pull people along with him. He delegated well and this allowed other prominent members of Labour to develop a public profile too. It’s basically never mentioned regarding Corbyn, lost between the ‘Red Corbyn’ spam of the right wing press and buried by the wide-eyed defensive of the Corbynistas. Heard it many times in podcasts talking about views from the inside. While a potential solid figurehead, he simply wasn’t good at the nitty gritty day-to-day running of a major political party. While a desired ideological shift was also part of it definitely, the above was also a large factor in the leadership challenges but Corbyn fans saw it as wholly an ideological coup. Ironically Blair despite being lampooned as Messianic was far better at teamwork than Corbyn who was almost the singular face of this election for many people. I think Corbyn is a decent chap but ultimately that the grounds were there for much more to be accomplished than did happen ultimately, if one is of a left wing mind. Plus Brexit is a thing too. I wouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water and see a bad campaign from a bad leader as necessitating a return to centrist ideas necessarily. Perhaps it may be the case but I really don’t know and can’t claim to as British politics is so weird at the minute. | ||
Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51493 Posts
I hope the next Labour leader brings a shift back to a more centric party and has a leader with some grit and charisma what we have lacked from them, hopefully also a woman leader which they have also never had (not a leader for an election anyway) The way every MP in the north that lost their seat was going crazy about Corbyn is just all the information you need to understand how bad the party was split and how bad they have done. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23488 Posts
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51493 Posts
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KwarK
United States43255 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States23488 Posts
On December 14 2019 23:23 Pandemona wrote: That is why Conservatives win because the Labour party was full left wing this election and has been under Corbyn. Are the lib dems not specifically aimed at filling that centrist party role or is my cursory reading of wiki failing me? | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26078 Posts
On December 14 2019 23:23 Pandemona wrote: That is why Conservatives win because the Labour party was full left wing this election and has been under Corbyn. I don’t know if it is the case. In the legitimate ‘I don’t know’ sense of the phrase, not used rhetorically to signify disagreement. As I’ve alluded to before, Brexit has a distorting effect on normal politics, to the degree I’m not sure any claims about the ideological appetite of the nation are accurate. Stemming from Brexit too comes Scotland and Scottish independence as a similar issue that supersedes other considerations. Most exemplified with Northern Ireland routinely returning pretty the most left wing party in the UK and the most right wing (elected anyway) routinely as their biggest parties. As I said I really don’t know. Labour obviously didn’t do well from the left, but the Lib Dem’s who very much are the centrist party got trounced too, and centrist defectors from Labour and the Conservatives also did not do well. | ||
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KwarK
United States43255 Posts
On December 15 2019 00:21 GreenHorizons wrote: Are the lib dems not specifically aimed at filling that centrist party role or is my cursory reading of wiki failing me? They are but they’re a third party in a two party system. Under Thatcher Labour went hard left and, due to FPTP, came up with an electoral strategy that would reliably get 40% of the vote and 40% of the seats. A number of prominent Labour politicians disagreed with ceding power to the Tories forever and so, after failing to change the direction of the party, left to form the Social Democratic Party which ran in alliance with the Liberal Party. They split the vote and Thatcher got a landslide. Ten years later Blair took the Labour Party leadership and basically said the SDP were right. Labour have been the centrist party since then. Old Labour were unrecognizably left wing, they’d be nationalizing power companies and train companies, closing private schools, making university free again. Corbyn is still working within the Blair/Thatcher consensus. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12358 Posts
On December 15 2019 00:32 Wombat_NI wrote: I don’t know if it is the case. In the legitimate ‘I don’t know’ sense of the phrase, not used rhetorically to signify disagreement. As I’ve alluded to before, Brexit has a distorting effect on normal politics, to the degree I’m not sure any claims about the ideological appetite of the nation are accurate. Stemming from Brexit too comes Scotland and Scottish independence as a similar issue that supersedes other considerations. Most exemplified with Northern Ireland routinely returning pretty the most left wing party in the UK and the most right wing (elected anyway) routinely as their biggest parties. As I said I really don’t know. Labour obviously didn’t do well from the left, but the Lib Dem’s who very much are the centrist party got trounced too, and centrist defectors from Labour and the Conservatives also did not do well. One way to bring some light into this would be to look at the policy positions espoused by Labour. Are they popular, are they not? If they aren't popular, it would be a sign that reverting back to the center would be a sound strategy. If they are, then no. If it's a mix, then get in the mix =) | ||
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Melliflue
United Kingdom1389 Posts
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12358 Posts
On December 15 2019 01:13 Melliflue wrote: More popular than Labour did in this election from what I can tell, but with many caveats, such as thinking it would need more tax rises than Labour admit. YouGov had an article about this here. Well there you have it. Now here's a question that you have to ask yourself, if the centrist wing of the party sees this electoral defeat and concludes that we should remove the popular policies and replace them with their own policies that would give them center stage, are they working in the interest of the party, or in their own interest? This is funny because it's extremely bad in terms of policy, cause if the left is center then the right has no room to be moderate and that incentivizes the far right, it's bad in terms of politics, cause in terms of the data we have both in the UK and internationally it doesn't look like the right strategy, and yet despite it being bad in all respects it's extremely unlikely to not happen. | ||
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Dangermousecatdog
United Kingdom7084 Posts
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