Will the UK put the death nail in the trickledown economics myth?

Herdfan said:
Yeah, can you give a quick and dirty of how all that works. Is the UK one of those places where someone decides to call for an election and they aren't scheduled?
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well given that we're talking about a Banana Republic (but not the store), what will happen is that members of the group organizing the coup will go off to some room where they'll appoint a new supreme leader who will then go tell the king that there's a new boss in town......then they'll all have tea since it's the UK.
 
Scepticalscribe said:
Agreed.

The UK used to be a by-word for stability, and decency, - and, for that matter, democracy, plus some sort of attachment to the idea of the rule of law - if leavened by a sort of stuffy and sometimes suffocating conservatism. Alas, no more.

This is appalling stuff.

Worse, it is an absolute - and excruciating - embarrassment.

Banana republics have been run better.

Four Prime Ministers in six years, four Chancellors this year alone, and - while he has been on the throne for less than two months, nevertheless, it would already appear that King Charles III is about to embark on the sovereign's weekly meetings with his second Prime Minister (his mother, in her reign of seventy years, saw 15 of them, meeting the the last of them - the then newly appointed Liz Truss - two days before her own death), and, if an election occurs in the next few months, will already more than likely be on his third.

Of course, it can be traced to that toxic combination of the Tories allowing themselves to be captured by ideological maniacs, without any serious attempt to respect (let alone, defend) the democratic traditions and institutions of the country, the appalling and pernicious influence of the loathsome Mr Murdoch and his media empire on British politics, culture and attitudes, and the sheer scandalous, casual, careless, insouciant irresponsibility of the David Cameron (politically, especially re Brexit) and George Osborne (economically) administration for failing to accept ownership (and responsibility) for what they had brought about.

What they - this Tory administration and its predecessors since 2010 - have done is outrageous. Scandalous. Disgraceful. And shameful.
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Perfectly summed up.

Accurate assessment of this appalling situation…

As you say, "The UK used to be a by-word for stability, and decency"

Scepticalscribe said:
In 2016, the UK economy was around 90% of the size of Germany's; now, it is closer to 70% (a decline that occurred in a mere six years); trade with the EU (the UK's largest trading partner) has fallen by almost 20% (and is still tumbling) since 2016; sterling has lost around 20% of its value (in real terms) since 2016, and so on.
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2016… the year that just keeps on giving. *shudder*

Herdfan said:
Yeah, can you give a quick and dirty of how all that works. Is the UK one of those places where someone decides to call for an election and they aren't scheduled?
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Simply, Parliament "sits" for 5 years…
So in practice a General Election has to be held before the 5 years expire.

The PM can go to the king and ask/recommend that Parliament be disolved and a GE called.

Usually these "snap elections" happen when the PM feels they have an excellent chance of gaining more seats — or when they feel their position is untenable.
The last does however require a PM and party with a sense of morality — basic right and wrong… in rather short supply these days in the Tory party.

This current sleazy lot seem destined to cling to power until they are forced to go to a GE when Parliament is dissolved 17 December 2024.
Right now it seems the Tories will throw one candidate after another at the Prime ministership until they have run through the whole of their back and front bench.

Seems like we are stuck with them until then.

Macky-Mac said:
well given that we're talking about a Banana Republic (but not the store), what will happen is that members of the group organizing the coup will go off to some room where they'll appoint a new supreme leader who will then go tell the king that there's a new boss in town......then they'll all have tea since it's the UK.
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Ya know?

As much as I hate to admit it, that sums up UK politics quite accurately. Christ.
 
Scepticalscribe said:
Actually, to my mind, - for I harbor considerable doubts about how the democratic integrity of a political system can be maintained and sustained under a "presidential system", and therefore, I far prefer parliamentary systems - it is not the fact that the UK has a parliamentary system of government that is the problem.

Rather, it is the fact that the UK never fully completed its various "revolutions"; they are arrested, and curiously incomplete, which means - in the absence of a written constitution which tends to make such matters explicit, while the absence of a written constitution has allowed various elites to be wonderfully vague on matters such as "human rights" and "civil rights" - that, to this very day, the population, the people, of the UK remain "subjects" (of His Majesty the King) rather than "citizens".

Citizens tend to have (inalienable) rights that subjects do not have and do not enjoy, other than conditionally, but not as a matter of right and rights; and, as women (and people of color) know all too bitterly well, conditional rights aren't rights at all, for they may be withdrawn on a whim, or a proverbial prayer, or political will, or a court judgment, or government decree or diktat, or, or, or...
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100% agree.

lizkat said:
There have been moments when I've wished we in the USA had a parliamentary system and that a snap election could be called. But talk about "grass is greener" syndrome.

Really there's nothing will cure the unsustainable habit both our systems have of kicking intractable issues down the road over and over again, mostly over inability to reconcile with effectiveness for the nation a bunch of opposing views on taxation, regulation, social spending.

There was a time when reconciliation through compromise was a goal, not like today when "reconciliation" is taken to mean "I've rounded up more votes so we're doing it this way." The winners feel insecure and the losers are angry. Consent of the governed totters amid grumbling but a lot of it is under radar and apathy is also widespread. So... there's room for elections on either side of the Atlantic to surprise.​

Anyway I wish the UK well in the coming weeks and months; it has been a time of hardship and uncertainty ever since the Brexit referendum passed, really... and one can understand the desire for an end to the extra look and feel of chaos now, with global inflation a huge factor.
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Nailed it! This idea of compromise has certainly kept the UK's weird political system together enough to last the decades of the 20th Century…
 
Herdfan said:
Yeah, can you give a quick and dirty of how all that works. Is the UK one of those places where someone decides to call for an election and they aren't scheduled?
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Arkitect said:
Simply, Parliament "sits" for 5 years…
So in practice a General Election has to be held before the 5 years expire.

The PM can go to the king and ask/recommend that Parliament be disolved and a GE called.

Usually these "snap elections" happen when the PM feels they have an excellent chance of gaining more seats — or when they feel their position is untenable.
The last does however require a PM and party with a sense of morality — basic right and wrong… in rather short supply these days in the Tory party.

This current sleazy lot seem destined to cling to power until they are forced to go to a GE when Parliament is dissolved 17 December 2024.
Right now it seems the Tories will throw one candidate after another at the Prime ministership until they have run through the whole of their back and front bench.

Seems like we are stuck with them until then.


Ya know?

As much as I hate to admit it, that sums up UK politics quite accurately. Christ.
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Normally, a newly elected parliament sits for a period of five years.

Earlier, in fact, ever since the early 18th century, when a formal limit on the length of time an elected parliament could sit was enacted into law, it had been set at seven years.

However, some earlier parliaments had run for considerably longer again, (for example, on several occasions during the Middle Ages, also during Tudor times, and, most famously, (or notoriously) as recently as the 17th century, when the so-called "Long Parliament" sat for twenty years, from 1640-1660), often because a monarch would refuse to call them fearing challenges to his or her authority.

This remained the situation until it was amended by the Parliament Act of 1911, - part of the reforming legislation of those great pre-WW1 Liberal administrations - which reduced the maximum length that a parliament could sit - in other words, could be in existence from the time it was first elected - from seven to five years.

Under the Tory-Liberal coalition government that took office in 2010, at the instigation of the Liberals, a Fixed-Term Act, regulating not just the length of time parliaments could sit, but also setting into law the actual default date that elections could be called (as is the case in France, and the US, for example), was passed in 2011.

This meant that not only was the length of time a newly elected parliament could sit determined by law, but - barring two exceptions - the date of the next General Election was also firmly fixed by statute.

In practice, (barring a government collapse as a result of the passage of a vote of no confidence in parliament which could trigger a General Election, or a parliamentary majority of two thirds passing a motion in favor of an earlier election), this - the passage of the Fixed-Term Parliamentary Act - served to remove one of the Prime Minister's main discretionary powers, as, while the length of time an elected parliament was allowed to sit was regulated, until the Fixed-Term Act, there was nothing to prevent a Prime Minister dissolving parliament early and calling a General Election at any time during his or her term of office if (political or economic or circumstantial) conditions seemed propitious.

In the general election of 2019, the Conservatives made it clear that, if returned to office, they intended to repeal the Fixed-Term Parliamentary Act, (Mr Johnson disliked anything that served to curb his powers, inclinations, proclivities, or appetites), and this (the repeal) received Royal Assent in May 2022, which meant it had become enacted into law.

Thus, the power of the Prime Minister to dissolve parliament at a time of their choosing, has been restored.
 
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Arkitect said:
until they have run through the whole of their back and front bench
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ISTR there was a tradition of the PM resigning from their own seat as well – if the Tories were honorable enough to hold to that, they would eventually lose their majority by their own folly. Probably would take too long, though, and counting on any modern politician to be honorable would be an unwise wager.
 
TBL said:
The latest I've heard is that Boris is being tapped to replace her. You can't make this stuff up.
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Ugh, Johnson. Doesn't he still have outstanding issues re being held to account for some behavior while PM? Seems messy to return anyway, but especially with that not settled. I'm surprised he wants it now actually. It's a dicey time and he could lend up with a vote of no confidence if he can't put a serious government together to meet the challenges.

Guess Rupert Murdoch o_O is cool with it: the NY Post splashed headline that Johnson is flying home from his vacation in the Dominican Republic for the vote, and is now the odds-on favorite.

Maybe it will come down to a two-way vote between BoJo and Rishi Sunak... the latter came second to Truss when replacement for Johnson was the issue at hand. Sunak seemed to have a grip on the economic realities. Maybe this time he will gain more support.

And Sunak was the favorite, just yesterday! Things are moving fast. Well there's a long bench to go through and I guess the Tories will do that rather than call for a general election now and lose it all to Labour given current public mood. King Charles must not be thrilled at the look and feel of chaos in the government before he's even crowned...
 
Kenneth Clarke? I thought he was a Monty Python punchline. Or was that Sir Kenneth Clarke?
 
I’m kind of baffled that when the PM gets taken out it becomes a party free for all. In the US if the President gets taken out you have to knock off like 50 people down to the White House dog catcher before you can just start throwing darts.
 
Chew Toy McCoy said:
I’m kind of baffled that when the PM gets taken out it becomes a party free for all. In the US if the President gets taken out you have to knock off like 50 people down to the White House dog catcher before you can just start throwing darts.
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Well not to drag the USA back into this thread for long (PLEASE) but the actual process --not the position but the process-- when a PM steps down is a bit like what happens in the US House of Representatives when the Speaker of the House is seen as ineffective by other members of that leader's party. The Speaker may be challenged and replaced during the course of a Congressional session, even though first chosen after biennial elections. He or she is selected by vote of House members, not directly by voters, nor per a formal succession plan either. This is the case even though the party's leadership has a hierarchy from which it's fairly common for a next leader to be nominated.
 
Chew Toy McCoy said:
I’m kind of baffled that when the PM gets taken out it becomes a party free for all. In the US if the President gets taken out you have to knock off like 50 people down to the White House dog catcher before you can just start throwing darts.
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The primary difference is that the office of PM is never literally on the ballot. Voters do not cast a vote for the PM the way they sorta do in US, they vote for a representative (MP) for their district and the MPs vote to select a PM. If a party (like the Tories) has a parliamentary majority, the party itself wrangles over who the PM should be and then takes their choice to the House where, having a majority, their choice goes through.

In situations where a party does not have a majority, they sniff around the other parties to form an interparty coalition in order to get a majority. Usually the smaller party will get concessions (good ministry posts) in exchange for their support.

If there were a fairly even balance of Tories, Labour and Lib-Dems, you would probably end up with a Tory PM and some major Lib-Dem ministers, because "liberal" means kind of the opposite outside the US (closer to libertarian).
 
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