UK Politics Thread

[Montmorency]

Gordon Brown Endorses Corbyn (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/gordon-brown-jeremy-corbyn-labour-leader-backs-phenomenon-people-change-left-wing-centre-tony-blair-a8047291.html?amp), and something about austerity

So, my impression is that Corbyn has been on a roll in the past half-year.

[Fragony]

Should Corbyn be happy with Brown endorsing him, is that a dagger I see. If labour is anything even remotily as traiterous internally as our Dutch counterpart anything can be a Judas' kiss. Brittish politics is always fun to watch, as an outsider you simply cannot understand what's going on. To the naked eye, Corbyn is a force of nature who simply has no use for the likes of Gordon Brown who has all 50 shades of grey and none of them are interresting

[Beskar]

Jeremy Corbyn got the Séan MacBride Peace Prize.
http://www.ipb.org/events/macbride-peace-prize-to-jeremy-corbyn/

[rory_20_uk]

Corbyn is to be fair to the man true to what he believes. He has had the good fortune that in his his entire life his principles have never really been tested - the closest was in the disastrous 1970s.

Gordon Brown was PM over 7 years ago - many if not most of Corbyn's supporters were in their early teenage years at that point and probably had little interest in politics. Such "minor" points as him selling UK's gold when almost at a historically low level whilst chancellor and his boasts to break the boom and bust cycle appear to be forgotten.

So he is another "fantastic" Labour ex-PM (who was mostly against the eeeevil Tony Blair) anointing the shadow leader.

Rather than focusing on the extremely difficult / complex global macroeconomics and redistribution from the wealthy western countries to the poorer ones which looks like a trend that is going to be extremely difficult to arrest, or the distorted global system of tax avoidance and how to solve it which would be extremely difficult to solve he avoids the "how" and just focuses on "aspirations". After all, the way to his solutions are extremely difficult if not impossible.

The good, well paid jobs appear to only be of importance to UK workers - it is almost as if his Socialism has a strong National flavour... National Socialism.

~:smoking:

[Fragony]

If you want to be really funny you could call him a facist, keeping existing sctructures intact while catering lower-classes third way. It wouldn't be really fair but not that off, a Starwars themed I am your father moment would be priceless

No, t's not true it's not possible

In your heart you know it to be true

NOOOOO

Then again, it's a little bit true

[Beskar]

Not enough Corporate Cronyism with Corbyn's policies.

[Furunculus]

corbyn has one redeeming quality as a politician:
he is willing to espouse ideas he believes in regardless of whether he loses favour among his peer group for publicly diverging from the consensus.
i admire that enormously.

alright, he has another redeeming quality (as human being):
he seems to be a decent man.
but this is of limited value in politics.

in all other realms I disagree with corbyn intensely:
he is doctrinaire, in pursuing ideas long since demonstrated to be a failure.
in order to achieve his collectivist dream, he is willing to throw overboard all the individual liberty i hold dear.

[Pannonian]

corbyn has one redeeming quality as a politician:
he is willing to espouse ideas he believes in regardless of whether he loses favour among his peer group for publicly diverging from the consensus.
i admire that enormously.

alright, he has another redeeming quality (as human being):
he seems to be a decent man.
but this is of limited value in politics.

in all other realms I disagree with corbyn intensely:
he is doctrinaire, in pursuing ideas long since demonstrated to be a failure.
in order to achieve his collectivist dream, he is willing to throw overboard all the individual liberty i hold dear.

He's a Brexiter, as are you.

[rory_20_uk]

He's a Brexiter, as are you.

Ye Gods! There are more things in the world than Brexiteer / not-Brexiteer.

Perhaps this will be a catalyst to a more developed / nuanced view of politics than the stale digital approach. Can people cope with the concept of two or even more variables at once??!?

~:smoking:

[Pannonian]

Ye Gods! There are more things in the world than Brexiteer / not-Brexiteer.

Perhaps this will be a catalyst to a more developed / nuanced view of politics than the stale digital approach. Can people cope with the concept of two or even more variables at once??!?

~:smoking:

Given all the knock on effects from Brexit, other nuances are minor in significance.

[Furunculus]

He's a Brexiter, as are you.

How does this relate to my comment?

[rory_20_uk]

Given all the knock on effects from Brexit, other nuances are minor in significance.

One of the biggest economic risks being viewed as Corbyn becoming PM and the effects that might have? That would be down to his other policies, nothing to do with Brexit.

~:smoking:

[Pannonian]

One of the biggest economic risks being viewed as Corbyn becoming PM and the effects that might have? That would be down to his other policies, nothing to do with Brexit.

~:smoking:

There may be differing views on the role of the state in Britain's economy. However, when even right wing US free marketeer think tanks conclude that the UK economy will significantly contract as a result of Brexit, why will it matter who is in charge? We'll all be in the crap, excepting the super rich who will be able to exploit the basket case that is post-Brexit Britain (cf. John Redwood's financial advice). How that crap will be distributed makes little difference.

And for that reason, I judge a politician on whether or not they're urging me to drink the kool aid. And I'll despise any politicians who urge it while making alternative arrangements for themselves.

[rory_20_uk]

There may be differing views on the role of the state in Britain's economy. However, when even right wing US free marketeer think tanks conclude that the UK economy will significantly contract as a result of Brexit, why will it matter who is in charge? We'll all be in the crap, excepting the super rich who will be able to exploit the basket case that is post-Brexit Britain (cf. John Redwood's financial advice). How that crap will be distributed makes little difference.

And for that reason, I judge a politician on whether or not they're urging me to drink the kool aid. And I'll despise any politicians who urge it while making alternative arrangements for themselves.

Ah yes, the WTO rules... Which we trade with Japan, USA, China, India, Brazil... the list is rather long. And somehow we manage to trade. Hardly optimal, but not going to end the country.

The super rich already can exploit the overseas money rules. They are pathetically easy to exploit - and cost merely a few thousand pounds to have a nice offshore Foundation with a "professional" local on the Board which means finding out the owner is almost impossible (since no books nor list of creditors is required). I found this out in about 10 minutes. Neither the Tories nor New Labour fixed this. Nor for that matter did Old Labour.

The economy will almost certainly contract, at the very least in the short term. Which puts pressure on investor / consumer confidence in the UK. Because since we run a large deficit even with the Eeeeevil Tories in power we need more to have the ability to sell money on the international markets.

If the Markets are not prepared to lend - due to the fiscal policies - then interest rates go way up and financing the debt becomes a problem. And if we are very unlucky with Corbyn nationalizing the Utilities and God knows what else debt will be truly vast. Or will he just wipe out the shareholders (which are often Pension funds since the utilities are "safe")? Then all the Banks will quickly offshore as the last vestiges of reasons to remain in the UK disappear. Possibly never to return - both no longer the gateway to Europe and the scare of electing utter nut jobs to be PM why take the risk?

Corbyn is a believer. He is an idealist. He would destroy the UK without remorse since he believes he would make something better from its ashes. Merely that he is prepared to go down with the ship doesn't make me like him any more for steering it towards the iceberg.

~:smoking:

[Pannonian]

Ah yes, the WTO rules... Which we trade with Japan, USA, China, India, Brazil... the list is rather long. And somehow we manage to trade. Hardly optimal, but not going to end the country.

The super rich already can exploit the overseas money rules. They are pathetically easy to exploit - and cost merely a few thousand pounds to have a nice offshore Foundation with a "professional" local on the Board which means finding out the owner is almost impossible (since no books nor list of creditors is required). I found this out in about 10 minutes. Neither the Tories nor New Labour fixed this. Nor for that matter did Old Labour.

The economy will almost certainly contract, at the very least in the short term. Which puts pressure on investor / consumer confidence in the UK. Because since we run a large deficit even with the Eeeeevil Tories in power we need more to have the ability to sell money on the international markets.

If the Markets are not prepared to lend - due to the fiscal policies - then interest rates go way up and financing the debt becomes a problem. And if we are very unlucky with Corbyn nationalizing the Utilities and God knows what else debt will be truly vast. Or will he just wipe out the shareholders (which are often Pension funds since the utilities are "safe")? Then all the Banks will quickly offshore as the last vestiges of reasons to remain in the UK disappear. Possibly never to return - both no longer the gateway to Europe and the scare of electing utter nut jobs to be PM why take the risk?

Corbyn is a believer. He is an idealist. He would destroy the UK without remorse since he believes he would make something better from its ashes. Merely that he is prepared to go down with the ship doesn't make me like him any more for steering it towards the iceberg.

~:smoking:

Everything you've said about Corbyn can be equally applied to the neolib Brexiters. And as Farage and Redwood demonstrate, they're not even willing to stay with the ship after having steered it towards the iceberg.

[rory_20_uk]

Everything you've said about Corbyn can be equally applied to the neolib Brexiters. And as Farage and Redwood demonstrate, they're not even willing to stay with the ship after having steered it towards the iceberg.

Whether leaving the EU is an iceberg is very debatable - I would argue having drifted so far into the EU is the problem and then pain we are experiencing is very much how the closer one is to a black hole the greater the cost to get away from it - it would have been a lot easier one or two decades ago than it is now; if we had bowed to demands to ditch the pound the difficulty would be all the greater. Sorry about mixing metaphors, but icebergs only really have the detrimental effect once they are hit; black holes have their effect at a longer distance.

I have my political views, I'm not emotionally tied to one party or group of people and I'll try to defend their self-serving antics. Corbyn also has his pension from being an MP, and that is a lovely final salary and index-linked so even in the wildest hells he unleashes he'll be fine. It is just most others who will be destitute.

It probably is people such as you and I who both have their job and all their assets linked to the UK rather than our Dear Leaders of any stripe. I can try and get part of my pension invested abroad, but that's about it.

~:smoking:

[Pannonian]

Whether leaving the EU is an iceberg is very debatable - I would argue having drifted so far into the EU is the problem and then pain we are experiencing is very much how the closer one is to a black hole the greater the cost to get away from it - it would have been a lot easier one or two decades ago than it is now; if we had bowed to demands to ditch the pound the difficulty would be all the greater. Sorry about mixing metaphors, but icebergs only really have the detrimental effect once they are hit; black holes have their effect at a longer distance.

I have my political views, I'm not emotionally tied to one party or group of people and I'll try to defend their self-serving antics. Corbyn also has his pension from being an MP, and that is a lovely final salary and index-linked so even in the wildest hells he unleashes he'll be fine. It is just most others who will be destitute.

It probably is people such as you and I who both have their job and all their assets linked to the UK rather than our Dear Leaders of any stripe. I can try and get part of my pension invested abroad, but that's about it.

~:smoking:

If you're trying to get me to admit that Corbyn is no better, then you won't get any resistance from me. I despise the man and the politician.

[Fragony]

Hard to dispise the man, he seems like a nice guy. I wouldn't like the politician either though, insanity is trying to same thing and expecting different results. But at least he really believes he isn't insane, but then again he would plunge you into a communist nightmare and won't listen to anyone once things start going wrong, good people can become the worst

[Beskar]

Corbyn is apparently a moderate by Norwegian standards.

[Fragony]

Corbyn is apparently a moderate by Norwegian standards.

Norway is kinda a country of extremes, even the weather is

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Corbyn is apparently a moderate by Norwegian standards.

Damning with faint praise much?

[Viking]

Corbyn is apparently a moderate by Norwegian standards.

I wonder what the 'Norwegian standards' are.

[Beskar]

I wonder what the 'Norwegian standards' are.

You will be able to better inform people than me. It was a Norwegian person who commented about it. They thought it was amusing that Corbyn was pictured as some ardent militaristic communist whilst being "Moderate by our standards".I was reproducing it as a conversation point.

[rory_20_uk]

They key difference is that Norway has a truly vast Sovereign wealth fund that could weather almost any storm. The UK borrows money monthly. When you need to borrow money off people, what they think is rather important.

~:smoking:

[Montmorency]

Corbyn is to be fair to the man true to what he believes. He has had the good fortune that in his his entire life his principles have never really been tested - the closest was in the disastrous 1970s.

Gordon Brown was PM over 7 years ago - many if not most of Corbyn's supporters were in their early teenage years at that point and probably had little interest in politics. Such "minor" points as him selling UK's gold when almost at a historically low level whilst chancellor and his boasts to break the boom and bust cycle appear to be forgotten.

So he is another "fantastic" Labour ex-PM (who was mostly against the eeeevil Tony Blair) anointing the shadow leader.

Rather than focusing on the extremely difficult / complex global macroeconomics and redistribution from the wealthy western countries to the poorer ones which looks like a trend that is going to be extremely difficult to arrest, or the distorted global system of tax avoidance and how to solve it which would be extremely difficult to solve he avoids the "how" and just focuses on "aspirations". After all, the way to his solutions are extremely difficult if not impossible.

From what I read the Labour Manifesto (https://labour.org.uk/manifesto/) details an agenda and its policy implementation, and claims to be budget-balanced.

Here's what it says about tax avoidance:


We will take on the social scourge of tax avoidance through our Tax Transparency and Enforcement Programme (http://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Tax-transparency-programme.pdf), and close down tax loopholes.


The good, well paid jobs appear to only be of importance to UK workers - it is almost as if his Socialism has a strong National flavour... National Socialism.

Is this a reference to something specific, or is it a complaint that Labour doesn't have a comprehensive plan for the world order?


Corbyn is a believer. He is an idealist. He would destroy the UK without remorse since he believes he would make something better from its ashes. Merely that he is prepared to go down with the ship doesn't make me like him any more for steering it towards the iceberg.

~:smoking:

How do you come by this assessment of his policy proposals?

Also, I wonder if a measure of idealism isn't pragmatic. Why vote for a party that doesn't seem to want to accomplish anything?


They key difference is that Norway has a truly vast Sovereign wealth fund that could weather almost any storm. The UK borrows money monthly. When you need to borrow money off people, what they think is rather important.

So the UK is already sinking and cannot survive in the long-term? And what are your choices:

1. Accelerate the trend and accept peonage.
2. Alter the logic of the framework.

:shrug:

[Seamus Fermanagh]

They key difference is that Norway has a truly vast Sovereign wealth fund that could weather almost any storm. The UK borrows money monthly. When you need to borrow money off people, what they think is rather important.

~:smoking:

Unless you borrow ENOUGH, in which case they're the ones who have to look after your well-being.

[rory_20_uk]

From what I read the Labour Manifesto (https://labour.org.uk/manifesto/) details an agenda and its policy implementation, and claims to be budget-balanced.

Here's what it says about tax avoidance:

Is this a reference to something specific, or is it a complaint that Labour doesn't have a comprehensive plan for the world order?

How do you come by this assessment of his policy proposals?

Also, I wonder if a measure of idealism isn't pragmatic. Why vote for a party that doesn't seem to want to accomplish anything?

So the UK is already sinking and cannot survive in the long-term? And what are your choices:

1. Accelerate the trend and accept peonage.
2. Alter the logic of the framework.

:shrug:

Oh it claims to be a balanced budget. Doesn't Labour always? By growing our way out of debt. Which requires debt now and then guaranteeing growth later on. And of course getting all the rich individuals to pay is part of it.

Tax avoidance requires something more than the UK doing something since profit is moved abroad by accounting magic so there is nothing to tax in the UK since all the product was bought at cost. I'm no accountant, but Lewis Hamilton demonstrates that big ticket items would be bought abroad, owned by companies and loaned to the end-user if the attempt at purchase tax was instigated. Try to get them as they are the company owner? Either have it owned by a Foundation or else have the Directors as cutouts.

Very rich individuals can pretty do the same thing. Linky (http://sterlingoffshore.com/). Before the final vote is collected and Corbyn wins, all the money will be flitting to places where it is nigh on impossible to get it with shell companies in the middle declaring bankruptcy leaving no paper trail.

Getting all countries to harmonise their tax codes is the way forward. But making promises might also also work...

I'm all for changing the logic of the framework. Better that than Labour drive us to Peonage.


Unless you borrow ENOUGH, in which case they're the ones who have to look after your well-being.

That tends not to work for Countries - the Credit Rating collapses, and things get very bad.

~:smoking:

[Pannonian]

Oh it claims to be a balanced budget. Doesn't Labour always? By growing our way out of debt. Which requires debt now and then guaranteeing growth later on. And of course getting all the rich individuals to pay is part of it.

Tax avoidance requires something more than the UK doing something since profit is moved abroad by accounting magic so there is nothing to tax in the UK since all the product was bought at cost. I'm no accountant, but Lewis Hamilton demonstrates that big ticket items would be bought abroad, owned by companies and loaned to the end-user if the attempt at purchase tax was instigated. Try to get them as they are the company owner? Either have it owned by a Foundation or else have the Directors as cutouts.

Very rich individuals can pretty do the same thing. Linky (http://sterlingoffshore.com/). Before the final vote is collected and Corbyn wins, all the money will be flitting to places where it is nigh on impossible to get it with shell companies in the middle declaring bankruptcy leaving no paper trail.

Getting all countries to harmonise their tax codes is the way forward. But making promises might also also work...

I'm all for changing the logic of the framework. Better that than Labour drive us to Peonage.



That tends not to work for Countries - the Credit Rating collapses, and things get very bad.

~:smoking:

The Anti Tax Avoidance Directive (https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/company-tax/anti-tax-avoidance-package/anti-tax-avoidance-directive_en)


The Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive contains five legally-binding anti-abuse measures, which all Member States should apply against common forms of aggressive tax planning.

Member States should apply these measures as from 1 January 2019.

It creates a minimum level of protection against corporate tax avoidance throughout the EU, while ensuring a fairer and more stable environment for businesses.

[rory_20_uk]

Lovely in theory. The first image is so simplistic it is amusing: yes, when a company has an entity called Profit Syphon Inc elsewhere it is nice and simple. But sadly... that never happens!

How does the EU know what something is worth? Or what value is added at what point in the chain? Is making a car in Mexico allowed or not? Starbucks gets its coffee beans processed abroad and then sells the finished product to individual companies - so most money is in the preparation. Is this allowed? If not why not?

What is Intellectual Property worth? Or patients? They will remain owned by some company in the Seychelles and charge 10% of all revenue worldwide.

And lastly - if the entity in the EU has no money, how exactly can you tax it? All the sites in the EU are separately owned distributors.

Oh, and let's not forget countries such as Ireland are on the side of the Companies and are actively fighting these changes.

~:smoking:

[Pannonian]

Lovely in theory. The first image is so simplistic it is amusing: yes, when a company has an entity called Profit Syphon Inc elsewhere it is nice and simple. But sadly... that never happens!

How does the EU know what something is worth? Or what value is added at what point in the chain? Is making a car in Mexico allowed or not? Starbucks gets its coffee beans processed abroad and then sells the finished product to individual companies - so most money is in the preparation. Is this allowed? If not why not?

What is Intellectual Property worth? Or patients? They will remain owned by some company in the Seychelles and charge 10% of all revenue worldwide.

And lastly - if the entity in the EU has no money, how exactly can you tax it? All the sites in the EU are separately owned distributors.

Oh, and let's not forget countries such as Ireland are on the side of the Companies and are actively fighting these changes.

~:smoking:

If the UK were within this effort and contributing our expertise, then the EU's efforts may be more effective. Policy-wise, the UK is the money-laundering centre of the world. This isn't due to lack of expertise, but due to intentional policy. And if we were to agree to work towards this ideal that you said you'd like, then because of our experience in aiding money-laundering, we'd also have the most expertise in reducing it. So once again, you describe an ideal and blame the EU for not being able to live up to it, when it's the UK which has the greatest part in thwarting this ideal of yours.

[rory_20_uk]

If the UK were within this effort and contributing our expertise, then the EU's efforts may be more effective. Policy-wise, the UK is the money-laundering centre of the world. This isn't due to lack of expertise, but due to intentional policy. And if we were to agree to work towards this ideal that you said you'd like, then because of our experience in aiding money-laundering, we'd also have the most expertise in reducing it. So once again, you describe an ideal and blame the EU for not being able to live up to it, when it's the UK which has the greatest part in thwarting this ideal of yours.

I'd be interested to see where it states the UK is the Capital.

Ireland shelters Apple.
Netherlands for Starbucks.

Lichtenstein is another. Monaco. Several States in the USA are very useful. Yes, many British Overseas Territories. And the Seychelles. Malta. Cyprus. Quite the list!

And all those bright minds doing it come from all over the world. Probably most of them are not resident here - possibly not anywhere.

My ideal?? I didn't draft the EU rules they are pushing through. I merely point out that there are enough countries inside the EU who don't want it to proceed - and certainly enough outside of it that make this a lovely PR stunt that keeps a lot of bureaucrats employed without really doing anything.

~:smoking:

[Pannonian]

I'd be interested to see where it states the UK is the Capital.

Ireland shelters Apple.
Netherlands for Starbucks.

Lichtenstein is another. Monaco. Several States in the USA are very useful. Yes, many British Overseas Territories. And the Seychelles. Malta. Cyprus. Quite the list!

And all those bright minds doing it come from all over the world. Probably most of them are not resident here - possibly not anywhere.

My ideal?? I didn't draft the EU rules they are pushing through. I merely point out that there are enough countries inside the EU who don't want it to proceed - and certainly enough outside of it that make this a lovely PR stunt that keeps a lot of bureaucrats employed without really doing anything.

~:smoking:

Once again, I point you to the extra 5000-10000 additional bureaucrats estimated to be needed by the UK to deal with the customs post-Brexit, of which around 1000 have already been recruited at 100k per position filled. If you want to moan about unnecessary bureaucrats employed at exorbitant expense, why not point to that instead? I don't like paying a lot for government either. That is one of the reasons why I can't stand Brexit, which shrinks the economy whilst growing the size of government.

[Montmorency]

Oh it claims to be a balanced budget. Doesn't Labour always? By growing our way out of debt. Which requires debt now and then guaranteeing growth later on. And of course getting all the rich individuals to pay is part of it.

Tax avoidance requires something more than the UK doing something since profit is moved abroad by accounting magic so there is nothing to tax in the UK since all the product was bought at cost. I'm no accountant, but Lewis Hamilton demonstrates that big ticket items would be bought abroad, owned by companies and loaned to the end-user if the attempt at purchase tax was instigated. Try to get them as they are the company owner? Either have it owned by a Foundation or else have the Directors as cutouts.

Very rich individuals can pretty do the same thing. Linky (http://sterlingoffshore.com/). Before the final vote is collected and Corbyn wins, all the money will be flitting to places where it is nigh on impossible to get it with shell companies in the middle declaring bankruptcy leaving no paper trail.

First of all, let's step back and note that global loss of revenue (https://www.taxjustice.net/2017/03/22/new-estimates-tax-avoidance-multinationals/) to multinational tax evasion is likely much less than $1 trillion a year. This is presumably more than what is lost to individual or miscellaneous avoidance, but let's say that's an equivalent amount. So, let's even say $1.5 trillion lost yearly to all (income tax) avoidance. We should now calculate and compare against total global tax revenues, but let's extrapolate from more accessible data on tax revenue as % of GDP (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GC.TAX.TOTL.GD.ZS). In 2015, global tax revenue was 15.22% of GDP. In 2016, global GDP (again according to the World Bank (http://databank.worldbank.org/data/download/GDP.pdf)) was $75.6 trillion - let's say 15% of $75 trillion then, or $11.25 trillion. So on the highest end, your looking at something over ~10% of all tax revenue lost to avoidance. The real proportion is almost certainly lower, and to the extent avoidance is a part of life I don't suppose we have reason to believe it isn't already maximally exploited.

To simplify matters let's look at the data for the UK in the first source above. The estimated loss for the UK is annually ~$1 billion. This is a little more than 0.1% of annual UK tax revenue. Even a much less conservative estimate would therefore be expected to remain far below 1% of revenue. (I don't know why the UK seems to lose much less as proportion of tax revenue than, say, the US or Japan, but that's another story.)

The conclusion, then, is that profit shifting has its limits already. With policy changes, both unilateral and multilateral, it can be further restricted and at the moment the UK probably has more than enough power to force the issue without losing much further revenue (in the worst case; the best case is of course increasing revenue and setting long-term trends).

The idea that raising taxes and closing loopholes will cause an exodus of enterprise and revenue is therefore unsupported, and in itself lends toward a strong argument for immediately reining in private enterprise across the board.

Next: a country can't hope to succeed by trying to retire outstanding debt within the current framework, since it always eventually requires the sale of the metaphorical "arm and a leg". Debt is not the problem; monetary policy and international finance is. States need to reassert their power in social welfare policy, while they still have some power left - without wielding it to undermine each other for short-term profit. This Prisoners' Dilemma isn't a perfect cage.


That tends not to work for Countries - the Credit Rating collapses, and things get very bad.

Yes, countries like Argentina or Greece are fairly easy to push around, but come on: Britons never never never shall be slaves.


Getting all countries to harmonise their tax codes is the way forward. But making promises might also also work...

Yes, it is necessary.


I'm all for changing the logic of the framework. Better that than Labour drive us to Peonage.

Do you really see Labour's policies as retaining a neoliberal framework, eventually concluding in national paralysis and individual suppression? Or, does Labour lean more into this than other parties do?

[Montmorency]

First of all, let's step back and note that global loss of revenue (https://www.taxjustice.net/2017/03/22/new-estimates-tax-avoidance-multinationals/) to multinational tax evasion is likely much less than $1 trillion a year. This is presumably more than what is lost to individual or miscellaneous avoidance, but let's say that's an equivalent amount. So, let's even say $1.5 trillion lost yearly to all (income tax) avoidance. We should now calculate and compare against total global tax revenues, but let's extrapolate from more accessible data on tax revenue as % of GDP (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GC.TAX.TOTL.GD.ZS). In 2015, global tax revenue was 15.22% of GDP. In 2016, global GDP (again according to the World Bank (http://databank.worldbank.org/data/download/GDP.pdf)) was $75.6 trillion - let's say 15% of $75 trillion then, or $11.25 trillion. So on the highest end, your looking at something over ~10% of all tax revenue lost to avoidance. The real proportion is almost certainly lower, and to the extent avoidance is a part of life I don't suppose we have reason to believe it isn't already maximally exploited.

To slide in before the Truce, just let me raise one oversight: the estate tax.

I don't know how this sort of tax is instantiated elsewhere, but in the United States it seems the American estate tax is one which principals can substantially evade through tricks, loopholes, and asset structuring.

https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/101217%20Estate%20Tax%20Whitepaper%20FINAL1.pdf
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/taxes/why-billions-dollars-estate-taxes-go-uncollected-n457236
https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/ten-facts-you-should-know-about-the-federal-estate-tax
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-many-people-pay-estate-tax

Links above suggest something less than a majority of potential liability evaded, but I recall once reading a piece that described how estates worth billions in taxable assets could be manipulated by decedents and relatives to somehow yield tens of millions in revenue upon taxation.

Something to look into re: Britain.

[a completely inoffensive name]

In before the truce.

[rory_20_uk]

To slide in before the Truce, just let me raise one oversight: the estate tax.

I don't know how this sort of tax is instantiated elsewhere, but in the United States it seems the American estate tax is one which principals can substantially evade through tricks, loopholes, and asset structuring.

https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/101217%20Estate%20Tax%20Whitepaper%20FINAL1.pdf
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/taxes/why-billions-dollars-estate-taxes-go-uncollected-n457236
https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/ten-facts-you-should-know-about-the-federal-estate-tax
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-many-people-pay-estate-tax

Links above suggest something less than a majority of potential liability evaded, but I recall once reading a piece that described how estates worth billions in taxable assets could be manipulated by decedents and relatives to somehow yield tens of millions in revenue upon taxation.

Something to look into re: Britain.

Holding assets in an offshore Foundation seems to be the best option. Ideally with wholly owned subsidiary companies to have key assets to enable share trading and divesting of assets if you want to do so. A few thousand a year to run and takes about 3 days to set up.

Thanks for the numbers. Often I've been told that adequate taxing would balance the books on the welfare state and to be honest I've never thoroughly looked into it.

~:smoking:

[Montmorency]

Carrilion? (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/17/world/europe/carillion-collapse-uk.html?mtrref=www.google.com)

[Gilrandir]

Carrilion? (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/17/world/europe/carillion-collapse-uk.html?mtrref=www.google.com)

Nah! Marillion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marillion)

[Montmorency]

[Sigh]

No I'm saying - and focus carefully here - that to nationalise many industries below market value whilst also looking to raise capital from the capital markets (privately owned - boo! Baddies) whilst forcing all large companies to give 10% of their shares to their UK employees (not really - most of the money would go to the State) is not possible.

Norway could do this easily. They. Have. The. Money. It is in a wealth fund and is worth over a trillion dollars. The UK either prints it directly or indirectly - or flat out steals it.

This has nothing to do with your sense of fairness. Corbyn's ideas might well be geared towards a fairer society. But sadly pouting and saying that it should work because you want it to isn't going to cut it.

Corbyn's ideas are fine as a backbencher. He has the purity of not having to deal with reality for decades and the 25W lightbulb of a brain that ensures he doesn't challenge his beliefs.

You too might have good intentions. But your puerile approach in trying to snarkily attack straw men is fine for a discussion forum (well, does not harm) but not running a country.

~:smoking:

I see, you're worried that Labour's policies (but not Brexit :creep:) would somehow wreck the UK economy. Your fundamental errors are in believing that money is a finite resource (and perhaps wildly overestimating the cost of Labour's proposals), and that a mere Corbyn PMship would naturally provoke a devastating capital strike or a declaration of war by capital markets. You think capitalists would be politically motivated to punish the UK even for relatively tame reforms (https://jacobinmag.com/2018/11/labour-party-inclusive-ownership-funds-corbyn-mcdonnell). If your qualms were shown to have a weaker basis than you assume, would you have a different attitude toward Labour's platform? Which, just to reiterate, is not at all an extreme platform (https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/corbyns-labour-agenda/) for Labour historically.

(In case you raise the specter of a US/CIA backstop alliance with the UK military, civil service, and capitalists to overthrow a UK Labour government, that's the least likely outcome - but would surely just be more reason yet to demand economic revision.)
Idaho


On Corbyn and Brexit (https://twitter.com/JamesMelville/status/1168791087873441793) for the sake of saving Org real estate: his response to Johnson begging for new elections was deft. Some had been predicting their dispositions would be reversed... Also I forgot about the existence of the House of Lords. Pro-Brexit lords tried filibustering the recent 'No Hard Brexit' bill. Didn't even know they had filibusters across the pond. Apparently it's much weaker than it is here, as evidenced by the failure just now and by the fact that the British record for filibusters is only like 3 hours (https://inews.co.uk/news/brexit/filibustering-brexit-bill-benn-no-deal-block-house-of-lords-delay-explained/). Lightweights. ACIN

[Pannonian]

I see, you're worried that Labour's policies (but not Brexit :creep:) would somehow wreck the UK economy. Your fundamental errors are in believing that money is a finite resource (and perhaps wildly overestimating the cost of Labour's proposals), and that a mere Corbyn PMship would naturally provoke a devastating capital strike or a declaration of war by capital markets. You think capitalists would be politically motivated to punish the UK even for relatively tame reforms (https://jacobinmag.com/2018/11/labour-party-inclusive-ownership-funds-corbyn-mcdonnell). If your qualms were shown to have a weaker basis than you assume, would you have a different attitude toward Labour's platform? Which, just to reiterate, is not at all an extreme platform (https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/corbyns-labour-agenda/) for Labour historically.

(In case you raise the specter of a US/CIA backstop alliance with the UK military, civil service, and capitalists to overthrow a UK Labour government, that's the least likely outcome - but would surely just be more reason yet to demand economic revision.)
Idaho


On Corbyn and Brexit (https://twitter.com/JamesMelville/status/1168791087873441793) for the sake of saving Org real estate: his response to Johnson begging for new elections was deft. Some had been predicting their dispositions would be reversed... Also I forgot about the existence of the House of Lords. Pro-Brexit lords tried filibustering the recent 'No Hard Brexit' bill. Didn't even know they had filibusters across the pond. Apparently it's much weaker than it is here, as evidenced by the failure just now and by the fact that the British record for filibusters is only like 3 hours (https://inews.co.uk/news/brexit/filibustering-brexit-bill-benn-no-deal-block-house-of-lords-delay-explained/). Lightweights. ACIN

Both Brexit and a Milnian government are equally detrimental to the UK's economy, in demonstrating how unstable and untrustworthy the UK is. Unless you are self sufficient, which no country in the world is or can be, with the possible exception of the US, then you need to trade for what you don't have, using currency that is essentially markers of your country's ability to provide goods and services. Both Brexit and a Milnian government are completely untrustworthy in this regard.

[rory_20_uk]

Both Brexit and a Milnian government are equally detrimental to the UK's economy, in demonstrating how unstable and untrustworthy the UK is. Unless you are self sufficient, which no country in the world is or can be, with the possible exception of the US, then you need to trade for what you don't have, using currency that is essentially markers of your country's ability to provide goods and services. Both Brexit and a Milnian government are completely untrustworthy in this regard.

Hardly.

The ultimate question is: does the UK pay its debts? In Brexit, there would be an adverse affect on the UK economy. But the bills would still be being paid. In Corbyn's plans (as stated at least) he could be Nationalising companies at book value not traded value. And enforced selling of 10% of companies. In essence, stealing as National policy. Might the next step be capital controls? This is thought to be so likely that Labour has had to state they won't do it.

So, both bad economically. But one is worse.

~:smoking:

[Montmorency]

Both Brexit and a Milnian government are equally detrimental to the UK's economy, in demonstrating how unstable and untrustworthy the UK is. Unless you are self sufficient, which no country in the world is or can be, with the possible exception of the US, then you need to trade for what you don't have, using currency that is essentially markers of your country's ability to provide goods and services. Both Brexit and a Milnian government are completely untrustworthy in this regard.

Leaving aside your opinions of individual members of the Labour Party, what complaints do you have with the Labour platform?


Hardly.

The ultimate question is: does the UK pay its debts? In Brexit, there would be an adverse affect on the UK economy. But the bills would still be being paid. In Corbyn's plans (as stated at least) he could be Nationalising companies at book value not traded value. And enforced selling of 10% of companies. In essence, stealing as National policy. Might the next step be capital controls? This is thought to be so likely that Labour has had to state they won't do it.

Why do you think that exactly?


Analysts (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-politics-labour-nationalisati/factbox-what-would-a-uk-labour-party-government-nationalize-and-how-idUSKCN1SR0ZA) have valued the regulated asset values of water and energy networks potentially facing nationalization at around 125 billion pounds ($159 billion).

Labour’s policy document goes on to say that parliament could seek deductions from the determined price based upon:

- pension fund deficits

- asset stripping since privatization

- stranded assets

- the state of repair of assets

- state subsidies given to the energy companies since privatization

Where is the theft? How does this affect the continuing capacity and willingness of the UK to honor its debts?

The existence of company stock and the rules for how it can be created and distributed are a function of law. Transferring 10% over 10 years (far less than 50% majority ownership, as older socialist plans have aspired to) to employee funds is not an unprecedented or pernicious disruption; it's just an exercise of regulatory authority. The business community will, as is typical, carry on and seek to identify and exploit loopholes.

[Pannonian]

Hardly.

The ultimate question is: does the UK pay its debts? In Brexit, there would be an adverse affect on the UK economy. But the bills would still be being paid. In Corbyn's plans (as stated at least) he could be Nationalising companies at book value not traded value. And enforced selling of 10% of companies. In essence, stealing as National policy. Might the next step be capital controls? This is thought to be so likely that Labour has had to state they won't do it.

So, both bad economically. But one is worse.

~:smoking:

Corbyn's manifesto economics are actually less radical than that now espoused by those implementing Brexit. However, we both know that he isn't limited to that. The difference is that I recognise the consequences of what he has in store, and reject it, whereas you still support Brexit despite its indisputably dire effects on the economy. You offer up sovereignty arguments, but why are Corbyn's sovereignty arguments invalid whereas yours are valid?

[Pannonian]

Leaving aside your opinions of individual members of the Labour Party, what complaints do you have with the Labour platform?



Why do you think that exactly?




Where is the theft? How does this affect the continuing capacity and willingness of the UK to honor its debts?

The existence of company stock and the rules for how it can be created and distributed are a function of law. Transferring 10% over 10 years (far less than 50% majority ownership, as older socialist plans have aspired to) to employee funds is not an unprecedented or pernicious disruption; it's just an exercise of regulatory authority. The business community will, as is typical, carry on and seek to identify and exploit loopholes.

Labour supports Brexit?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The Telegraph claims most Britons now just wants Brexit Delivered: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/09/10/britons-want-brexit-referendum-respected-poll-reveals-public/

This includes 35% of Remainers and 54% of the population overall (a significant increase on the referendum result).

The gambits in Parliament may well force Boris Johnson to extend the timetable but it looks like he will not be the one blamed for it. It has to be said, it's difficult for the Opposition to oppose an election after getting their emergency No-No-Deal Law passed and not look like they're afraid of the Prime Minister winning outright.

[Pannonian]

The Telegraph claims most Britons now just wants Brexit Delivered: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/09/10/britons-want-brexit-referendum-respected-poll-reveals-public/

This includes 35% of Remainers and 54% of the population overall (a significant increase on the referendum result).

The gambits in Parliament may well force Boris Johnson to extend the timetable but it looks like he will not be the one blamed for it. It has to be said, it's difficult for the Opposition to oppose an election after getting their emergency No-No-Deal Law passed and not look like they're afraid of the Prime Minister winning outright.

Was this the same as the last Telegraph poll that claimed the same, that turned out to be a series of leading questions?

NB. The current PM, featured prominently in the short excerpt visible, was the Telegraph's star columnist.

[Pannonian]

Subsidiary question: does democracy trump every other consideration? If a democratically valid decision is made, does it get implemented whatever the results may be?

[rory_20_uk]

Subsidiary question: does democracy trump every other consideration? If a democratically valid decision is made, does it get implemented whatever the results may be?

Definitely not!

There are plenty of examples of "Bad" democracy. We generally call this "populism".

The idea behind democracy is that the unwashed are given freedom between very limited choices and are free to choose. All big decisions are kept out of their hands since they don't really understand what they want.

We saw this in every country where people were allowed to vote on the EU. Every country voted no, which just demonstrated a lack of understanding of their own wants. When the question was rephrased (and parameters tweaked) all got it right the next time!

Same with Brexit. No one really understood the question. Everyone implicitly believed the politicians for once. And sadly there are just some xenophobic racists / ex-Empire fantasists / the criminally insane who also are allowed to vote.

So clearly - for their own sake - this one wasn't really "democracy" but an outpouring of lies, misplaced anger and hatred so clearly can be ignored.

We need to trust the MPs all who represent a minority of their constituents and where the House is led by a minority party since the opposition is too cowardly to hold an election.

~:smoking:

[Pannonian]

Definitely not!

There are plenty of examples of "Bad" democracy. We generally call this "populism".

The idea behind democracy is that the unwashed are given freedom between very limited choices and are free to choose. All big decisions are kept out of their hands since they don't really understand what they want.

We saw this in every country where people were allowed to vote on the EU. Every country voted no, which just demonstrated a lack of understanding of their own wants. When the question was rephrased (and parameters tweaked) all got it right the next time!

Same with Brexit. No one really understood the question. Everyone implicitly believed the politicians for once. And sadly there are just some xenophobic racists / ex-Empire fantasists / the criminally insane who also are allowed to vote.

So clearly - for their own sake - this one wasn't really "democracy" but an outpouring of lies, misplaced anger and hatred so clearly can be ignored.

We need to trust the MPs all who represent a minority of their constituents and where the House is led by a minority party since the opposition is too cowardly to hold an election.

~:smoking:

Since you're being facetious, shall I present you with another question? If the referendum gives any mandate to implement its findings, and the country is charged with its implementation, does it carry within its mandate and implementation a responsibility to keep its other promises too? What shape does its implementation require? Is it the responsibility of the people who disagreed with the premise, or do the decision makers, ie. those who decided to do this, own responsibility?

If you want that in short:
1. Do the Leave government have to keep its other Leave promises?
2. Will the winners accept responsibility for the results?

It's within your power to answer these questions. In any normal election, any voter can easily answer these questions. In any normal election, the actions committed during a campaign are also due for scrutiny, but I'm not going to put you through that process. The actions of the Leave campaign would void the whole referendum (as they did in other elections elsewhere (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-41123329)).

[rory_20_uk]

Let's go back to basics:

We have a First Past the Post, winner take all system where the winner has often less than 30% of the popular vote in their area yet all the authority
They get elected on a party manifesto which is neither exhaustive nor legally binding. They add in their own local issues that are based more on winning votes than something they have any intention of doing - since they go to Westminster and have little to do with the day to day running of the area they nominally represent.
They then go to Westminster where they every vote they make is monitored by the Whips and they know that their career is based on party loyalty - which can change dramatically outside of the election cycle but they are not held accountable for this.
The PM is any person who can win a vote. Even if this involves bribing people with Government money to do so. As long as they get just over 50% of the House they have effectively 100% of the power. So that can mean what? 15% of the populace voted for them.

And on top of this all power is technically the Monarch's but not really and this balance itself is not clearly delineated. Oh, and decisions of the Monarch can not be challenged in law, but the Monarch can choose to change her mind if asked.

To reiterate, in normal elections there is NO requirement to follow through on ANY promises WHATSOEVER. In this case, Boris was taken to court (as you probably recall) and was not found guilty. There are several other cases that have been brought and to date none have been successful. So as far as the Law is concerned there is nothing that was in breach.

And on top of this mess we had a referendum.


The rot started (from the UK perspective) right at the start. Cameroon wanted a mandate to do what he wanted. He's cut from the same Etonian stock as Boris - they want to be the leader doing what they want, not the leader doing what other people want. So, he was only interested in the "remain" answer - since he probably had decided to leave if the answer was "leave". Anything to do with "leave" became boring detail.

In essence, although the Ballot (the legal part of the process) had two simple choices - leave and remain you desperately try to add everything else on to this to cloud the issue as far as possible... We the voters set the outcome, not the process. A contract is governed by what is written in the contract, not posters stuck up around it. The Politicians are responsible for getting there since they have the power. Leave voters have no power over the MPs.

In essence, as long as the Ruling Classes screw something up badly enough that itself is reason to not undertake the activity?

~:smoking:

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Since you're being facetious, shall I present you with another question? If the referendum gives any mandate to implement its findings, and the country is charged with its implementation, does it carry within its mandate and implementation a responsibility to keep its other promises too? What shape does its implementation require? Is it the responsibility of the people who disagreed with the premise, or do the decision makers, ie. those who decided to do this, own responsibility?

If you want that in short:
1. Do the Leave government have to keep its other Leave promises?
2. Will the winners accept responsibility for the results?

It's within your power to answer these questions. In any normal election, any voter can easily answer these questions. In any normal election, the actions committed during a campaign are also due for scrutiny, but I'm not going to put you through that process. The actions of the Leave campaign would void the whole referendum (as they did in other elections elsewhere (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-41123329)).

Point of Order: Rory was being ironic, not facetious. I will criticise him for not punctuating his point with "Or, in other words yes" and for being more acidic than he should have been but his point was otherwise quite clear, and relevant.

To answer your question I would say "yes, in every instance." That is why we must be careful to maintain the "democratic machinery" of our society to mitigate against truly terrible decisions. Even so, we can see that modern democracies that the elected legislature often makes decisions that seem "wrong" after the fact. A Prime example of this is the US Congress refusing to go to War with the Axis Powers until After Pearl Harbour. Despite the US having been generally allied with the UK and France since WWI Congress not only refused to declare War, it made every effort to block the US from even selling the UK weapons - a situation which led to the UK having to ship its Gold Bullion to the US to buy expensive Thompson Machine guns.

That decision not only permanently wrecked the UK economy by depleting our gold reserves, it lengthened the War probably by years.

As regards the Comportment of the UK Government, the referendum was not an election and since then we have had an election. At the time that the Referendum was held the majority of the Pro-Leave camp were not in government. They did not so much make promises as sales pitches and some of those pitches were, frankly, a bit ludicrous. I struggle to see how anyone could actually expect that all the money that presently goes to the EU, pre-rebate, would end up in the NHS. Some of it would obviously have to go to replace EU subsidies. As regards other claims - the Leave camp cannot be directly blamed for the failure of negotiations because the negotiations were conducted primarily by Theresa May.

This idea that the "winners" must accept all responsibility for all facets of the outcome remains ludicrous - it is like saying the Irish must accept responsibility for us holding a referendum on membership because that was a foreseeable outcome of the Lisbon Treaty being enacted the way it was.

[Pannonian]

1. Parliament orders government to publish plans for no deal.
2. Government dissolves Parliament.
3. Government refuses to publish plans for no deal.
4. Scottish court rules that government's dissolution of Parliament is illegal.

Do Leavers support the government's actions to thus implement Leave?

[rory_20_uk]

1. Parliament orders government to publish plans for no deal.
2. Government dissolves Parliament.
3. Government refuses to publish plans for no deal.
4. Scottish court rules that government's dissolution of Parliament is illegal.

Do Leavers support the government's actions to thus implement Leave?

What do you suggest leavers do?

~:smoking:

[Pannonian]

What do you suggest leavers do?

~:smoking:

Note all the wrongdoings done by a government in the name of implementing their decision? How many illegalities would you accept from a government if it's done to enact your decision to leave the EU? Does your democratic decision trump the rule of law and the primacy of Parliament? If you want to argue that the latter continues to matter, then what's the line at which you accept that it's not worth it? If you will never accept that leaving the EU is not worth it, then does that mean whatever the government does in the name of enacting your decision is acceptable?

[rory_20_uk]

Note all the wrongdoings done by a government in the name of implementing their decision? How many illegalities would you accept from a government if it's done to enact your decision to leave the EU? Does your democratic decision trump the rule of law and the primacy of Parliament? If you want to argue that the latter continues to matter, then what's the line at which you accept that it's not worth it? If you will never accept that leaving the EU is not worth it, then does that mean whatever the government does in the name of enacting your decision is acceptable?

Illegalities? Which ones are they?

~:smoking:

[Pannonian]

Illegalities? Which ones are they?

~:smoking:

The latest one being the prorogation of Parliament. The reasoning behind the court decision is revealing too.

[rory_20_uk]

The latest one being the prorogation of Parliament. The reasoning behind the court decision is revealing too.

The Scottish Court, not the English Court that had the opposite view.

And the Scottish Court chose not to order anything do their judgement is toothless.

The English Court reasoning is interesting too - that nothing that has been done is against the law.

~:smoking:

[Pannonian]

The Scottish Court, not the English Court that had the opposite view.

And the Scottish Court chose not to order anything do their judgement is toothless.

The English Court reasoning is interesting too - that nothing that has been done is against the law.

~:smoking:

That says everything about the mentality of Leave. If they can get away with it, then it's acceptable.

[Furunculus]

Illegalities? Which ones are they?

~:smoking:

that judgement is contested, and being resolved in the courts.

are there others?

[Furunculus]

duplicate post

[rory_20_uk]

That says everything about the mentality of Leave. If they can get away with it, then it's acceptable.

That says everything about you: whatever excuse to overturn the simple fact more voted to leave. Everything else is just details - Leavers voted to leave not the method.

You seem to be happy that all politicians have to do to overturn the will of the people is just to do it poorly and say "oh dear I tried..."

~:smoking:

[Furunculus]

i've been guilty of this too, but less personalisation of the debate would be useful.

i will endeavor to return to my more desultory presentation.

[Pannonian]

That says everything about you: whatever excuse to overturn the simple fact more voted to leave. Everything else is just details - Leavers voted to leave not the method.

You seem to be happy that all politicians have to do to overturn the will of the people is just to do it poorly and say "oh dear I tried..."

~:smoking:

One of the leaders of the Leave campaign is currently heading the government. How does that square with that last line?

What do you think of the government ignoring Parliament's request to see the studies for no deal? It's not an impossible request, as the studies exist, and all the government has to do to comply is to make them available. Is the government's refusal to do so, on the grounds that it would only worry people, acceptable because Parliament is not currently sitting and is thus toothless?

[Furunculus]

I believe yellowhammer is now published.

[Pannonian]

Somewhat edited. It's a summary, not the detailed study which planners have had access to. Item 15 has been blanked entirely. The title has also been changed according to someone who'd been working on it: it's now titled "HMG Reasonable Worst Case Planning Assumptions", whereas it was originally the base scenario, ie. most likely scenario.

"Low income groups will be disproportionately affected by any price rises in food and fuel."

The section on agriculture is also noteworthy.

[Pannonian]

Here's section 15.

15. Facing EU tariffs makes petrol exports to the EU uncompetitive. Industry had plans to mitigate the impact on refinery margins and profitability but UK Government policy to set petrol import tariffs at 0% inadvertently undermines these plans. This leads to significant financial losses and announcement of two refinery closures (and transition to import terminals) and direct job losses (about 2000). Resulting strike action at refineries would lead to disruptions to fuel availability for 1-2 weeks in the regions directly supplied by the refineries.

[Pannonian]

Government are now refusing to release personal communications relating to the prorogation of Parliament.

[rory_20_uk]

i've been guilty of this too, but less personalisation of the debate would be useful.

i will endeavor to return to my more desultory presentation.

I do not know if all remainers think the same. Some things are specific to an individual as otherwise I would be engaging in lazy stereotyping.


One of the leaders of the Leave campaign is currently heading the government. How does that square with that last line?

What do you think of the government ignoring Parliament's request to see the studies for no deal? It's not an impossible request, as the studies exist, and all the government has to do to comply is to make them available. Is the government's refusal to do so, on the grounds that it would only worry people, acceptable because Parliament is not currently sitting and is thus toothless?

One of the leaders of the leave campaign is heading the government. Are the other MPs also helping with the process? I think that they have backed several legal campaigns to try to block the government at least gives mixed messages.

And back to detail of what the government has done... I think that the Government should be concentrating on getting Leave sorted. What the government releases or not doesn't depend on whether the government is in session or not - since the Government is able to block any move as long as they have a majority. The Dodgy Dossier, anyone?

It would be great if Government - and other MPs could focus on getting things sorted rather than errata.

~:smoking:

[Pannonian]

I do not know if all remainers think the same. Some things are specific to an individual as otherwise I would be engaging in lazy stereotyping.



One of the leaders of the leave campaign is heading the government. Are the other MPs also helping with the process? I think that they have backed several legal campaigns to try to block the government at least gives mixed messages.

And back to detail of what the government has done... I think that the Government should be concentrating on getting Leave sorted. What the government releases or not doesn't depend on whether the government is in session or not - since the Government is able to block any move as long as they have a majority. The Dodgy Dossier, anyone?

t would be great if Government - and other MPs could focus on getting things sorted rather than errata.

~:smoking:

Are you saying that Parliament should butt out and leave the government alone to do its thing?

[rory_20_uk]

Are you saying that Parliament should butt out and leave the government alone to do its thing?

Are you saying parliament should not carry out the will of the populace?

~:smoking:

[Pannonian]

Are you saying parliament should not carry out the will of the populace?

~:smoking:

Isn't it the interpretation of Parliament as to what it should do? On the Parliament website, an MP's first duty is to the country and the people. Secondary duty is to their constituents. Tertiary is to their party.

If no deal is the will of the people, demonstrate it.

[rory_20_uk]

Isn't it the interpretation of Parliament as to what it should do? On the Parliament website, an MP's first duty is to the country and the people. Secondary duty is to their constituents. Tertiary is to their party.

If no deal is the will of the people, demonstrate it.

Well, at least that's clear.

Given that even a simple majority of the people is not sufficient then frankly nothing ever will. Any person is going to be "incorrect" in some way or other.

So this is an intrinsic belief you have that nothing would ever be sufficient. Everything else is detail and none of it could ever matter.

I'll no more waste my time than I would pop down a Church and argue the existence of God with a Priest.

~:smoking:

[Pannonian]

Well, at least that's clear.

Given that even a simple majority of the people is not sufficient then frankly nothing ever will. Any person is going to be "incorrect" in some way or other.

So this is an intrinsic belief you have that nothing would ever be sufficient. Everything else is detail and none of it could ever matter.

I'll no more waste my time than I would pop down a Church and argue the existence of God with a Priest.

~:smoking:

Since you interpret the 2016 result as no deal, will you own the consequences of no deal? Successive governments since 2016 have been attempting to implement the results of that referendum. A subsequent election in 2017 has clarified the mandate of the government in its efforts to implement the result of that referendum. One of the leaders of the Leave campaign took over the government this year. Does this not count as implementing the results of the referendum? Is opposition to the government's efforts in implementing said referendum no longer allowed?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

It's quite clear that certain MP's are, against the will of their constituents and the referendum result, trying to prevent us leaving at all. The English attempt to declare the prorogation illegal was headed by Gina Miller, a wealthy businesswoman with no political mandate and about as far from the "average citizen" as one could get.

The question at this point is whether we can get a deal or we need to leave without one. The referendum result demanded we leave - many Remainers at the time said there would be no second Referendum and no extension of the time table. Mostly to scare people into voting Remain.

Those people have since then achieved two extensions and some are pushing for a repeat Referendum.

On the other side, Boris said he could get a deal, but then he didn't become Prime Minister and Theresa May did, and she said we were leaving on 29th March, and "No deal is better than a bad deal". Having got the worst deal she tried to force it down Parliament's throat, stretching convention to breaking point in the process.

None of this excuses Boris trying to prorogue for five weeks, but it should put it in context.

[Pannonian]

It's quite clear that certain MP's are, against the will of their constituents and the referendum result, trying to prevent us leaving at all. The English attempt to declare the prorogation illegal was headed by Gina Miller, a wealthy businesswoman with no political mandate and about as far from the "average citizen" as one could get.

The question at this point is whether we can get a deal or we need to leave without one. The referendum result demanded we leave - many Remainers at the time said there would be no second Referendum and no extension of the time table. Mostly to scare people into voting Remain.

Those people have since then achieved two extensions and some are pushing for a repeat Referendum.

On the other side, Boris said he could get a deal, but then he didn't become Prime Minister and Theresa May did, and she said we were leaving on 29th March, and "No deal is better than a bad deal". Having got the worst deal she tried to force it down Parliament's throat, stretching convention to breaking point in the process.

None of this excuses Boris trying to prorogue for five weeks, but it should put it in context.

The likelihood now is that we will leave with no deal. Are you still for leaving now that it's going to be on those terms? And if you are, are you going to accept responsibility for the consequences of leaving on those terms? Your above post indicates that you will not accept not leaving, since you are bitter at those who have worked towards that. If there is still a chance of changing one's mind, I assume that you still would not. So am I right in assuming that, given a choice between no deal and no Brexit, you would still choose Brexit even at the cost of no deal?

[Furunculus]

The likelihood now is that we will leave with no deal. Are you still for leaving now that it's going to be on those terms?

slightly bored - because we've been through this a number of times already:

"yes"

[Pannonian]

And you characterise Gina Miller as an unelected rich woman. I don't know what their sources are, but Byline Times reports that hedge funds that have previously backed Johnson and Cummings have staked over 8 billion GBP on no deal. Would this be why the PM is so keen on no deal?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The likelihood now is that we will leave with no deal. Are you still for leaving now that it's going to be on those terms? And if you are, are you going to accept responsibility for the consequences of leaving on those terms? Your above post indicates that you will not accept not leaving, since you are bitter at those who have worked towards that. If there is still a chance of changing one's mind, I assume that you still would not. So am I right in assuming that, given a choice between no deal and no Brexit, you would still choose Brexit even at the cost of no deal?

In the short term No Deal is bad, in the long term continued membership of the EU is worse.

That's really all that matters, in the end. The rest is just detail.

Also, I'm not bitter - I think you might be projecting.

I'm just tired.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Prorogation of Parliament deemed "unlawful".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49810261

Boris Johnson tilts the delicate balance of our Constitution one way, the Supreme Court tilts it far over the other way.

[Pannonian]

Prorogation of Parliament deemed "unlawful".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49810261

Boris Johnson tilts the delicate balance of our Constitution one way, the Supreme Court tilts it far over the other way.

Prorogation of Parliament in order to deny Parliament a say in the most drastic constitutional period in living memory is unlawful. That the evidence indicates, indisputably, that the reason given by the executive is false, and that this act of prorogation was politically motivated. If you're going to report the news, report the reasoning given by the Supreme Court as well.

And one of the fundamental reasons for Brexit given by Brexiteers (I'm not allowed to specify posters any more) is that UK courts should not be subject to foreign-driven laws. This is the highest UK court defending the principle that the UK Parliament cannot be dissolved for political ends. As the ECJ did, it's ruled that the UK Parliament is sovereign. Not the UK executive.

11-0. And Man City thought they did well.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I understand the argument but this raises a crucial question:

Who has the right to prorogue Parliament if not the Queen on the advice of her ministers?

[a completely inoffensive name]

The equivalent of Marbury vs Madison for the UK. Only took you guys 220 years to catch up.

I said it was clearly undemocratic and you guys said it wasnt. I said Parliament thinks it was undemocratic and you guys said it was the opposite. Now the court unanimously says it was undemocratic and you are saying the entire court must be wrong.

You just want things to happen your way, like a screaming toddler.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I understand the argument but this raises a crucial question:

Who has the right to prorogue Parliament if not the Queen on the advice of her ministers?They still have that right, but can only use it for the right reasons. This is Abuse of Power 101. Just because Government can advise to prorouge doesnt mean they have the ability to exercise it to the nth degree, there are limitations. Dont pretend limitations equals no right otherwise you will start to lose my respect.

[Beskar]

I understand the argument but this raises a crucial question:

Who has the right to prorogue Parliament if not the Queen on the advice of her ministers?

The Queen has no power, she is bound to go with the 'recommendation (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49811931)' whatever it entails with a rubberstamp or it causes a constitutional crisis there as well. She is effectively held hostage by this. Therefore, it is the actual 'advice' offered by the prime minister under scrutiny and not the Queen.

In short, the UK has found tradition like in the USA, to be challenged and thrown out of the window by those who want to exploit it for their own ends: Boris and Trump and their legion of demagogues and backers.

There are also key sections to the ruling and what it entails. These are broken down here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49813309
It was delivered in such a precise way, that Boris has no comeback what so ever other than go "I disagree".

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The equivalent of Marbury vs Madison for the UK. Only took you guys 220 years to catch up.

I said it was clearly undemocratic and you guys said it wasnt. I said Parliament thinks it was undemocratic and you guys said it was the opposite. Now the court unanimously says it was undemocratic and you are saying the entire court must be wrong.

You just want things to happen your way, like a screaming toddler.

I don't think you fully appreciate the implications of the judgement - regardless of what you thought of the prorogation.

The UK Constitution functions on the basis of a complex interaction of contradictory legal fictions. It's like a house of cards and today's Supreme Court Judgment has brought it that much closer to collapse. Brexit is now probably the most dangerous political crisis since Edward VIII wanted to marry Wallis Simpson.

[Pannonian]

I don't think you fully appreciate the implications of the judgement - regardless of what you thought of the prorogation.

The UK Constitution functions on the basis of a complex interaction of contradictory legal fictions. It's like a house of cards and today's Supreme Court Judgment has brought it that much closer to collapse. Brexit is now probably the most dangerous political crisis since Edward VIII wanted to marry Wallis Simpson.

Magna Carta established the principle that the executive does not have the right to set aside Parliament which is the representative of the kingdom. Every attempt to repeat John's assumption of executive supremacy has been recognised as being against the fibre of the English system. The constitutional monarchy came into being because the last monarch to presume absolute power was run out of town and a suitably obedient replacement invited. The executive only has power because they command the confidence of Parliament. If they do not, they do not have the right to set Parliament aside for the sake of their convenience.

That's the constitutional principle side of things. The other part of the court judgment is that the PM is a lying so and so.

[rory_20_uk]

If the end of this acute mess is reform of the chronic mess we've currently got then that is a good thing. I very much doubt that there will be the root and branch reform required - more a rearranging of the seats so all the vested interests continue. The fiction of Democracy where most votes are meaningless and the Queen has absolute power as long as she exercises none of it.

This PM is a liar. So was the last one. And the one before that. And so on.

~:smoking:

[Pannonian]

If the end of this acute mess is reform of the chronic mess we've currently got then that is a good thing. I very much doubt that there will be the root and branch reform required - more a rearranging of the seats so all the vested interests continue. The fiction of Democracy where most votes are meaningless and the Queen has absolute power as long as she exercises none of it.

This PM is a liar. So was the last one. And the one before that. And so on.

~:smoking:

Still of the opinion that exiting the EU will solve all this?

[Montmorency]

Nice Twitter

22881

"Brekekekekexit" is an especially delightful pun because Brexit is kek, if you didn't catch that.


If the end of this acute mess is reform of the chronic mess we've currently got then that is a good thing. I very much doubt that there will be the root and branch reform required - more a rearranging of the seats so all the vested interests continue. The fiction of Democracy where most votes are meaningless and the Queen has absolute power as long as she exercises none of it.

This PM is a liar. So was the last one. And the one before that. And so on.

~:smoking:

Just a general note that this is a naive and powerless sort of dismissal. I also note that it's inconsistent with the belief (which you seem to adopt) that a socialist can plausibly amass enough power to enact fundamental changes to British society. Doesn't it become a mere excuse for self-satisfaction when things continue not to go well? It is more decent and productive to be appalled.

[rory_20_uk]

Still of the opinion that exiting the EU will solve all this?

Still enjoying asking questions and assigning incorrect beliefs?


Just a general note that this is a naive and powerless sort of dismissal. I also note that it's inconsistent with the belief (which you seem to adopt) that a socialist can plausibly amass enough power to enact fundamental changes to British society. Doesn't it become a mere excuse for self-satisfaction when things continue not to go well? It is more decent and productive to be appalled.

When I watch Yes Prime Minister from c. 50 years ago and see them playing the same games I am not sure why I should either have optimism or be appalled that things have continued in the same vein. 20 years ago I might have been appalled since it was new to me but now it no longer is. The entire design of the system is there to resist any changes and to return mainly the same collection of MPs to their safe seats.

~:smoking:

[Pannonian]

Still enjoying asking questions and assigning incorrect beliefs?

You're the one who says that we have to leave the EU because we can't have foreign courts having jurisdiction over the UK Parliament's decisions. This is an entirely UK-internal thing, over your decision to leave the EU (and don't pretend it's nothing to do with Brexit). How's it working out?

[Pannonian]

The ruling by the UK Supreme Court is a devastating indictment of the abuse of power by a prime minister — and of the holder of that office, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. The 11 judges unanimously concluded that Mr Johnson’s five-week suspension of parliament was an unlawful attempt to silence MPs, at the very moment the UK, through Brexit, faces the biggest shake-up in its constitutional status for decades. Mr Johnson’s claim that the suspension was a routine break before a new legislative session stands exposed. The judges found the prime minister in effect misled MPs, the British people, and the Queen. No future premier will be able to act this way again. The judges’ ruling marks a historic moment in the evolution of the UK constitution.

The court’s decision was a much-needed reminder that, even in the most testing political circumstances, Britain remains a representative democracy underpinned by the rule of law. MPs are elected to exercise their good judgment and take decisions on behalf of constituents. They hold to account a government formed from among their number. The executive is accountable to parliament, and parliament to the people. Removing parliament, even for a matter of weeks, breaks the chain of accountability. The UK system cannot allow a cabal around the prime minister to determine by itself the “will of the people” and attempt to implement it, while sidelining those whom the people elected to represent them. This is the road to tyranny.
...
The power to suspend parliament, the judges found, is limited if it conflicts with parliament’s sovereign power to make laws, and the government’s accountability to parliament. Prorogation is unlawful if its effect prevents parliament from fulfilling its functions — without a very good reason. In one of the most stinging passages of their ruling, the judges found the effect of Mr Johnson’s actions on British democracy was “extreme”, and that the government had put forward no proper justification.


NB. The Financial Times is probably the most respected newspaper in the UK.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Magna Carta established the principle that the executive does not have the right to set aside Parliament which is the representative of the kingdom. Every attempt to repeat John's assumption of executive supremacy has been recognised as being against the fibre of the English system. The constitutional monarchy came into being because the last monarch to presume absolute power was run out of town and a suitably obedient replacement invited. The executive only has power because they command the confidence of Parliament. If they do not, they do not have the right to set Parliament aside for the sake of their convenience.

That's the constitutional principle side of things. The other part of the court judgment is that the PM is a lying so and so.

No, Magna Carta established the principle that the monarch is not above the Law - i.e. the Law is not something the monarch can change at will. Instead, the Law is either decided by consensus (either by a conclave of the magnates or in a trial by jury) or by a learned Judge.

Today, the Supreme Court, a collections of our most learned Judges, decided that the monarch must act according to the advice of their ministers and that if said advice is faulty then the actions taken by the monarch are null and void.

Previously this was not a legal precedent but merely a convention.

The Supreme Court just struck down the Monarch's Power of Veto - a future government could now apply to the Supreme Court if the monarch were to withold consent from a tyrannical Bill, say, and use this judgement as precedent.

Now, watch as Parliament goes back to squabbling for a week before voting for a recess so that everyone but Labour can hold their annual political conference.

Showed that Toff Boris though, right?

[Pannonian]

No, Magna Carta established the principle that the monarch is not above the Law - i.e. the Law is not something the monarch can change at will. Instead, the Law is either decided by consensus (either by a conclave of the magnates or in a trial by jury) or by a learned Judge.

Today, the Supreme Court, a collections of our most learned Judges, decided that the monarch must act according to the advice of their ministers and that if said advice is faulty then the actions taken by the monarch are null and void.

Previously this was not a legal precedent but merely a convention.

The Supreme Court just struck down the Monarch's Power of Veto - a future government could now apply to the Supreme Court if the monarch were to withold consent from a tyrannical Bill, say, and use this judgement as precedent.

Now, watch as Parliament goes back to squabbling for a week before voting for a recess so that everyone but Labour can hold their annual political conference.

Showed that Toff Boris though, right?

Hang on. Can you show me where this is the case? On my previous browse of the ruling, the FT quote seemed an accurate enough summary to me, but then you raise this argument which I've not seen elsewhere. I've gone back to the source document, and I can't find anything of the sort, and certainly not in balance.

[Montmorency]

When I watch Yes Prime Minister from c. 50 years ago and see them playing the same games I am not sure why I should either have optimism or be appalled that things have continued in the same vein. 20 years ago I might have been appalled since it was new to me but now it no longer is. The entire design of the system is there to resist any changes and to return mainly the same collection of MPs to their safe seats.

~:smoking:

If you think the distribution of power in society never changes (bar revolution), you forget your history or "how the world works." Yes Minister has the downside of presenting an (entertaining) fairy tale of government, a conservative one. At its best it is a good satire, but it should not be taken as a more complete or adroit depiction of modern government than Season 4 of Blackadder is of trench warfare.

An insufficient but arguably necessary condition for reform (whatever that means in context!) is when enough people make demands on the state - there is movement. Almost every service, every right and privilege, every vesting of vested interests has come about when merchants, peasants, workers, and so on have pressured the state into growing to adopt new responsibilities, underwritten by their loyalty, their conscription, their taxation. With contract law as with social welfare.

We are entering a time of great ferment and instability. Hearken or others will speak for you whom you might not wish to do the speaking.

She's (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAJsdgTPJpU) doing pretty good speaking though.


The Supreme Court just struck down the Monarch's Power of Veto - a future government could now apply to the Supreme Court if the monarch were to withold consent from a tyrannical Bill, say, and use this judgement as precedent.


Taking your fear at face value, the substance appears to be that the court intervening between the Monarch and a tyrannical act by the executive is bad because it can set precedent for a hypothetical future Parliament to petition the courts against the Monarch over refusing to condone a tyrannical Act by Parliament. Do I have it right? :wacky:

If that's the fear, it smells like the intensification of internal contradictions.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Hang on. Can you show me where this is the case? On my previous browse of the ruling, the FT quote seemed an accurate enough summary to me, but then you raise this argument which I've not seen elsewhere. I've gone back to the source document, and I can't find anything of the sort, and certainly not in balance.

https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2019-0192.html

The Lady Justice was quite careful to try to obfusticate this point as much as possible but it remains. The precedent has been set that it is the advice the Prime Minister gives to the Monarch that gives the Monarch's actions legel effect. If the advice is "null and void" so is the Monarch's action.


Taking your fear at face value, the substance appears to be that the court intervening between the Monarch and a tyrannical act by the executive is bad because it can set precedent for a hypothetical future Parliament to petition the courts against the Monarch over refusing to condone a tyrannical Act by Parliament. Do I have it right? :wacky:

If that's the fear, it smells like the intensification of internal contradictions.

Yes - although I would describe the Prorogation as really more "naughty" than Tyrannical. Parliament demonstrated it can pass a Bill in 48 hours if properly motivated. It follows that there was, in fact, enough time for Parliament to scrutinise any deal and agree or reject it before 31st October. There was certainly enough time to have a vote of No Confidence in Boris Johnson.

Now the Nuclear Option is off the table for when we actually need it.

[Pannonian]

https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2019-0192.html

The Lady Justice was quite careful to try to obfusticate this point as much as possible but it remains. The precedent has been set that it is the advice the Prime Minister gives to the Monarch that gives the Monarch's actions legel effect. If the advice is "null and void" so is the Monarch's action.



Yes - although I would describe the Prorogation as really more "naughty" than Tyrannical. Parliament demonstrated it can pass a Bill in 48 hours if properly motivated. It follows that there was, in fact, enough time for Parliament to scrutinise any deal and agree or reject it before 31st October. There was certainly enough time to have a vote of No Confidence in Boris Johnson.

Now the Nuclear Option is off the table for when we actually need it.

Typical Brexiter approach to completely absolve the actor in favour of Brexit from responsibility for their actions. AFAIK it wasn't Parliament who prompted Johnson to prorogue it for 5 weeks, which as the ruling noted, is completely at odds with the given reasoning of preparing a Queen's speech. If the PM is proroguing Parliament for this reason, the normal interval is 5-6 days, not weeks. The judges noted that there was plenty of evidence showing that the PM's given reasoning was not the truth, and zero evidence that it was.

You talk about a theoretical veto on a hypothetical future tyrannical Bill being lost to the Supreme Court. That's theoretical, hypothetical, future and a number of other adjectives meaning not real. You raise these not-real cases to defend this actual abuse of power to evade scrutiny from Parliament. What is it about Brexiters and their tendency to ignore the reality in front of everyone's eyes in favour of hypothetical future not-real arguments of principle? Do you support what Johnson did? If you do not, then what should have been done about it?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

It's nothing to do with Brexit, my objection has nothing to do with Brexit, I did not support the Prorogation.

Prorogation having been invoked I do not support the decision of the Supreme Court.

The judges at no point said that Boris Johnson's reasons given were "not the truth", they merely deemed them inadequate under the circumstances.

As the Lady Justice noted, the courts have made judgements on the King's​ power since 1611. It would have been better for all of us if they had attacked the Queen directly for following Boris Johnson's advice instead of accepting she is hostage to it.

[Pannonian]

It's nothing to do with Brexit, my objection has nothing to do with Brexit, I did not support the Prorogation.

Prorogation having been invoked I do not support the decision of the Supreme Court.

The judges at no point said that Boris Johnson's reasons given were "not the truth", they merely deemed them inadequate under the circumstances.

As the Lady Justice noted, the courts have made judgements on the King's​ power since 1611. It would have been better for all of us if they had attacked the Queen directly for following Boris Johnson's advice instead of accepting she is hostage to it.

Everyone knows it's to do with Brexit, but the court's ruling sidesteps it by looking purely at the government's given reasoning, which is to prepare a Queen's speech. It has never taken anywhere near 5 weeks in the past, and the evidence given by the government does not support taking this long. So using the government's own reasoning, the only explanation is that the government is stopping Parliament from its role of oversight. Which, unlike your hypothetical argument, is both real and current, and as great an abuse of power as it gets in our constitution. What the government has done is both unprecedented, and unsupported by law. To allow it is to tacitly support it. Thus the Supreme Court did not allow it. The government should follow convention, and if it breaks convention and lies about it, then its actions must be nullified, not allowed. Unless, of course, you take the view that the government is above law and not bound by it.

[Greyblades]

Oh great, just what we need 4 extra weeks of parliament doing nothing, loudly. I was enjoying the peace.

[Pannonian]

A female MP (and it's females who get the most of this) asks the PM to tone down his language as she and others have been receiving death threats, given that one of their number had been assassinated in 2016 due to feelings inflamed by the Brexit campaign. The PM replies that he's never heard such humbug in his life.

There has never been a greater scumbag in the office of PM than Boris Johnson.

[Furunculus]

“Have seen more hours of the Commons than I care to remember + that was one of most brutal + mad I have ever seen - no shred of remorse from the PM ruled to have broken law yesterday, paltry attempt at answering Corbyn's Qs, a few Labour MPs screaming, 'you should be in jail'”

hehe, the sausage machine doth grind exceedingly slow of late.

[Pannonian]

What do the Leavers think of this?

https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1176943253217845248?s=19

[CrossLOPER]

What do the Leavers think of this?

https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1176943253217845248?s=19

I liked it better when he was reciting Kipling in former colonies.

[Pannonian]

Humbug, says the PM about death threats to (predominantly female) MPs. Now Jo Swinson, Liberal Democrat leader, has reported threats to her 5 year old daughter. The macho posturing of Brexiteers and the constant ramping up of language has normalised this kind of behaviour. Female MP after female MP pleaded with Johnson to tone it down, but his response was to dial it up even more. I asked the Leavers here what they think of it. I doubt they will condemn it, since he heads their team, and everything he does is justified in their eyes as long as he continues to head their team.

[CrossLOPER]

Humbug, says the PM about death threats to (predominantly female) MPs. Now Jo Swinson, Liberal Democrat leader, has reported threats to her 5 year old daughter. The macho posturing of Brexiteers and the constant ramping up of language has normalised this kind of behaviour. Female MP after female MP pleaded with Johnson to tone it down, but his response was to dial it up even more. I asked the Leavers here what they think of it. I doubt they will condemn it, since he heads their team, and everything he does is justified in their eyes as long as he continues to head their team.

Winning.

[Montmorency]

Wrong thread. Crap, and I lost the original post. :daisy:, I've been hanging on to this one (https://twitter.com/i/status/1174296316438036482) anyway.

[Greyblades]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp865xUXMrg

[Furunculus]

What do the Leavers think of this?

https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1176943253217845248?s=19

i agree with it to the limited degree that a relationship can be drawn between a woman who died in a political campaign and implementing the decision of that campaign.

i find the portrayal of martydom quite distasteful, not least because i find the manufactured outrage deeply unpleasant.

it's commentary LauraK's quoted above that is inflammatory and inaccurate. The PM didn't break any law. He acted unlawfully in the view of judges, who interpreted the common law in a new and novel way, that even the high court disagreed with.


Humbug, says the PM about death threats to (predominantly female) MPs. Now Jo Swinson, Liberal Democrat leader, has reported threats to her 5 year old daughter. The macho posturing of Brexiteers and the constant ramping up of language has normalised this kind of behaviour. Female MP after female MP pleaded with Johnson to tone it down, but his response was to dial it up even more. I asked the Leavers here what they think of it. I doubt they will condemn it, since he heads their team, and everything he does is justified in their eyes as long as he continues to head their team.

^ manufactured outrage ^

ranks alongside calls for bozza to be "decapitated", to let him "swing in the wind", and tory MP's to "be lynched". all part and parcel of an adversarial political system and of little operational import. MP's complaining about the use of the term "surrender act" are wasting valuable oxygen.

[Pannonian]

Sample letter.


It was rather prophetic that Boris Johnson should say 'I would rather be found dead in a ditch'. This is what will happen to those who do not deliver Brexit

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Everyone knows it's to do with Brexit, but the court's ruling sidesteps it by looking purely at the government's given reasoning, which is to prepare a Queen's speech. It has never taken anywhere near 5 weeks in the past, and the evidence given by the government does not support taking this long. So using the government's own reasoning, the only explanation is that the government is stopping Parliament from its role of oversight. Which, unlike your hypothetical argument, is both real and current, and as great an abuse of power as it gets in our constitution. What the government has done is both unprecedented, and unsupported by law. To allow it is to tacitly support it. Thus the Supreme Court did not allow it. The government should follow convention, and if it breaks convention and lies about it, then its actions must be nullified, not allowed. Unless, of course, you take the view that the government is above law and not bound by it.

I'm afraid you've oversteppped here. Like the power to call elections at any time (prior to 2011) the power to Prorogue can, and has, been used for political ends.

https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-8589

https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/LLN-2019-0111

Prior to 1931 it was not unusual for Parliament to be prorogued for more than two months - the last lengthy prorogation NOT before a generation election was 87 days.

[Pannonian]

I'm afraid you've oversteppped here. Like the power to call elections at any time (prior to 2011) the power to Prorogue can, and has, been used for political ends.

https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-8589

https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/LLN-2019-0111

Prior to 1931 it was not unusual for Parliament to be prorogued for more than two months - the last lengthy prorogation NOT before a generation election was 87 days.

So why did they settle on 5 weeks?

BTW, what did you make of the PM's performance yesterday? Did you agree with his assessment of the MPs' fears as humbug? Do you agree with him that the best way of remembering Jo Cox is to get Brexit done?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

BTW, what did you make of the PM's performance yesterday? Did you agree with his assessment of the MPs' fears as humbug? Do you agree with him that the best way of remembering Jo Cox is to get Brexit done?

Not really, no.

[Greyblades]

There is a certain sadness in that they are rendering meaningless the vote that she was murdered while campaigning for one side.

[Pannonian]

There is a certain sadness in that they are rendering meaningless the vote that she was murdered while campaigning for one side.

Are you deliberately leaving out the fact that she was campaigning for Remaining when someone murdered her for campaigning to Remain, citing arguments spouted by the Leave campaign? That the MPs asking the PM to tone it down include her friends, and the MP who replaced her. That one of those MPs showed a recent death threat she received that directly cited the PM. That another MP revealed that her 5 year old daughter also received a death threat. The MPs receiving death threats are predominantly female, and those issuing death threats are predominantly in favour of Leave.

Do you think that the best way of solving these threats is to pass Brexit?

Edit: one of the above MPs had her office attacked today.

[Pannonian]

"the Prime Minister may be losing control of his behavior because he’s coming “under intense pressure from the people who have invested billions in shorting the £ & British economy for a no deal Brexit”

- Rachel Johnson

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Are you deliberately leaving out the fact that she was campaigning for Remaining when someone murdered her for campaigning to Remain, citing arguments spouted by the Leave campaign? That the MPs asking the PM to tone it down include her friends, and the MP who replaced her. That one of those MPs showed a recent death threat she received that directly cited the PM. That another MP revealed that her 5 year old daughter also received a death threat. The MPs receiving death threats are predominantly female, and those issuing death threats are predominantly in favour of Leave.

Do you think that the best way of solving these threats is to pass Brexit?

Edit: one of the above MPs had her office attacked today.

None of which we're condoning - because we're concerned with her actual death during the campaign - not point-scoring.

[Pannonian]

None of which we're condoning - because we're concerned with her actual death during the campaign - not point-scoring.

1. Her murderer accused her of things the Leave campaign accused Remainers of, during the assault.
2. People close to her have pointed out that the PM is ramping up the language again in a manner likely to incite. One of those had a death threat directly quoting the PM.
3. Since last night, one of those threatened MPs had her office attacked by someone calling her a traitor.

Is it point scoring when the above has happened? You're willing to overturn and break up the country for your hypothetical arguments, but you're dismissing things that have actually happened as point scoring. At what point will Leavers say that lines have been crossed by Leavers that shouldn't have?

[CrossLOPER]

"the Prime Minister may be losing control of his behavior because he’s coming “under intense pressure from the people who have invested billions in shorting the £ & British economy for a no deal Brexit”

- Rachel Johnson

How do you make money off of that? I really want to know. What kind of investments do you make? I know people make money from contracts when rebuilding a country like Iraq, but this isn't quite the same case. Maybe securing really crappy supply chain rights that they won't be able to fulfill?

The only other thing I can think of is security, for when Brexiters climb out and start wandering the shadows spouting out factoids about the racial composition of German-allied infantry in Africa and the Middle East during World War II or speaking Middle English to preserve their true heritage or something.

[Furunculus]

1. Her murderer accused her of things the Leave campaign accused Remainers of, during the assault.
2. People close to her have pointed out that the PM is ramping up the language again in a manner likely to incite. One of those had a death threat directly quoting the PM.
3. Since last night, one of those threatened MPs had her office attacked by someone calling her a traitor.

Is it point scoring when the above has happened? You're willing to overturn and break up the country for your hypothetical arguments, but you're dismissing things that have actually happened as point scoring. At what point will Leavers say that lines have been crossed by Leavers that shouldn't have?

https://order-order.com/2019/09/26/left-needs-dial-abusive-language/

also: my previous point above. performative outrage.

[Pannonian]

https://order-order.com/2019/09/26/left-needs-dial-abusive-language/

also: my previous point above. performative outrage.

After MPs have been threatened, their offices attacked, and their children threatened, your response is "You do it too." Was it performative outrage to receive death threats and have people attempting to break in whilst calling them traitor? What did Jo Swinson's daughter do to merit threats?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

How do you make money off of that? I really want to know. What kind of investments do you make? I know people make money from contracts when rebuilding a country like Iraq, but this isn't quite the same case. Maybe securing really crappy supply chain rights that they won't be able to fulfill?

The only other thing I can think of is security, for when Brexiters climb out and start wandering the shadows spouting out factoids about the racial composition of German-allied infantry in Africa and the Middle East during World War II or speaking Middle English to preserve their true heritage or something.

You act like the vile abuse of women on and offline is related to brexit.

It's actually related to overwrought keyboard warriors - which is why I've been lobbying for more civility around here.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/09/26/jeremy-corbyn-urged-detach-cronies-falling-behind-jo-swinson/

Jezza less popular than Jo Swinson after Labour conference.

[Montmorency]

You act like the vile abuse of women on and offline is related to brexit.

It's actually related to overwrought keyboard warriors - which is why I've been lobbying for more civility around here.

The problem isn't lack of "civility," it's reactionary barbarians.

[CrossLOPER]

You act like the vile abuse of women on and offline is related to brexit.

It's actually related to overwrought keyboard warriors - which is why I've been lobbying for more civility around here.

It's kind of a part of it. The leaders of Brexit seem to be happy to enjoy the benefits of having imbeciles pick off their rivals without explicitly telling them to do so. Rhetoric matters, especially when you have eager listeners.

[Furunculus]

After MPs have been threatened, their offices attacked, and their children threatened, your response is "You do it too." Was it performative outrage to receive death threats and have people attempting to break in whilst calling them traitor? What did Jo Swinson's daughter do to merit threats?

no, my response is to treat politics desultory manner as if it is entertainment, and to bring the full weight of the law against those who incite and instigate or threaten violence.

https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1177157891444420609

but you don't get to pretend that we haven't always had an adversarial political system where opposing ideas are challenged rather than mediated upon.

[Pannonian]

You act like the vile abuse of women on and offline is related to brexit.

It's actually related to overwrought keyboard warriors - which is why I've been lobbying for more civility around here.

Both the PM and his chief of staff have hinted that the only way of stopping the abuse is to do what the government wants and pass Brexit. Well, in the case of Cummings it's less hinting and more explicit.

[Pannonian]

How do you make money off of that? I really want to know. What kind of investments do you make? I know people make money from contracts when rebuilding a country like Iraq, but this isn't quite the same case. Maybe securing really crappy supply chain rights that they won't be able to fulfill?

The only other thing I can think of is security, for when Brexiters climb out and start wandering the shadows spouting out factoids about the racial composition of German-allied infantry in Africa and the Middle East during World War II or speaking Middle English to preserve their true heritage or something.

A contract for difference (CFD) is a popular form of derivative trading. CFD trading enables you to speculate on the rising or falling prices of fast-moving global financial markets, such as forex, indices, commodities, shares and treasuries. (https://www.cmcmarkets.com/en-gb/learn-cfd-trading/what-are-cfds)

[rory_20_uk]

A contract for difference (CFD) is a popular form of derivative trading. CFD trading enables you to speculate on the rising or falling prices of fast-moving global financial markets, such as forex, indices, commodities, shares and treasuries. (https://www.cmcmarkets.com/en-gb/learn-cfd-trading/what-are-cfds)

Just like Black Friday when the UK crashed out of having a currency linked with Europe.

I guess that was such a success of course we'd go for more integration - when it again fails there's a fortune to be made.

~:smoking:

[Pannonian]

Just like Black Friday when the UK crashed out of having a currency linked with Europe.

I guess that was such a success of course we'd go for more integration - when it again fails there's a fortune to be made.

~:smoking:

So your response when shown that your Leave leaders are screwing you over for their profit is to blame the EU.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The problem isn't lack of "civility," it's reactionary barbarians.

So the problem isn't lack of civility so much as a reactionary lack of civility?

I stand by my point.


It's kind of a part of it. The leaders of Brexit seem to be happy to enjoy the benefits of having imbeciles pick off their rivals without explicitly telling them to do so. Rhetoric matters, especially when you have eager listeners.

You're right, rhetoric does matter. The most strident rhetoric came from Geoffrey Cox on Wednesday when he accused the opposition of being cowardly in refusing to the dissolution of the "dead parliament".

Yet we focus on Boris, still.

Nobody talks about all the "evil Tory" memes either.

I will say this though, the things Dominic Cummings has said, openly, are beyond the pale - especially for an unelected quack.

[rory_20_uk]

So your response when shown that your Leave leaders are screwing you over for their profit is to blame the EU.

LOL

They are not "my leaders", nor the leaders of those who wish to leave. They are the elected officials who supposedly carry out the wishes of the people. And that fiction is becoming all too evident.
I never blamed the EU, I gave a parallel so this could be predicted.

Do you find it difficult to understand simple statements?

~:smoking:

[Montmorency]

no, my response is to treat politics desultory manner as if it is entertainment, and to bring the full weight of the law against those who incite and instigate or threaten violence.


Your response is a scummy one. I could never take a person seriously who professes such an attitude.


So the problem isn't lack of civility so much as a reactionary lack of civility?

I stand by my point.


No. That is exactly the wrong takeaway. When you say things like this it deeply disturbs me, because it creates the impression that a government could exterminate people like me and you would stand idly by as long as officials could deliver it with a facade of professional urbanity.

[CrossLOPER]

A contract for difference (CFD) is a popular form of derivative trading. CFD trading enables you to speculate on the rising or falling prices of fast-moving global financial markets, such as forex, indices, commodities, shares and treasuries. (https://www.cmcmarkets.com/en-gb/learn-cfd-trading/what-are-cfds)

So neckbeards who got tired of flipping things on the Steam marketplace are bullying BJ Brexkowicz so they can continue making imaginary money on an imaginary marketplace? Is that about the sum of it?

[Pannonian]

So neckbeards who got tired of flipping things on the Steam marketplace are bullying BJ Brexkowicz so they can continue making imaginary money on an imaginary marketplace? Is that about the sum of it?

And they're willing to screw the UK over for their moneymaking whizz.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

No. That is exactly the wrong takeaway. When you say things like this it deeply disturbs me, because it creates the impression that a government could exterminate people like me and you would stand idly by as long as officials could deliver it with a facade of professional urbanity.

Urbanity is not civility, although neither is it piety.

I do not necessarily adhere to one virtue, however death threats, threats of violence, accusations of cowardice, accusations of treachery for holding certain opinions.... These things are uncivil.

If you think, kind, compassionate behaviours can be fostered without civility then I think you are sadly mistaken.

I think my point is born out by your use of the word "barbarian" which is the antonym of "civilised".

[Montmorency]

Urbanity is not civility, although neither is it piety.

I do not necessarily adhere to one virtue, however death threats, threats of violence, accusations of cowardice, accusations of treachery for holding certain opinions.... These things are uncivil.

If you think, kind, compassionate behaviours can be fostered without civility then I think you are sadly mistaken.

I think my point is born out by your use of the word "barbarian" which is the antonym of "civilised".

Kind, compassionate behaviors cannot be fostered among certain ideologies, period. Their only value and content is sadism. This has nothing to do with performative civility.

[Furunculus]

Your response is a scummy one. I could never take a person seriously who professes such an attitude.


I am endlessly curious to know why you come to this conclusion:

It surely cannot be my conviction that we must to bring the full weight of the law against those who incite and instigate or threaten violence!
Is it perhaps because i refuse to treat politics with the personal commitment and solemnity of a religious zealot, choosing instead to treat politcs as a hobby - as one might horse racing?

Do tell, me old mucker. ;)

[CrossLOPER]

choosing instead to treat politcs as a hobby
I struggle to find a place to begin, in describing what is wrong with this sentiment. Morally and socially, it is abdicating responsibility. It's the "I was only pretending to be retarded" approach for politics when something bad happens as a result of rhetoric or policy.

[Furunculus]

Oh dear lord above, you misunderstand the situation entirely!

On a personal level i hold my own values, assiduously seek parties that meet those values, interrogate those parties mercilessly to expose flaws, and constantly reevaluate whether those parties are worthy of my support.

But here, here we do something different: we discuss politics and the values that inform those politics. There would be nothing more tedious than me zelously and earnestly trying to convert you to the 'true' cause. And nothing more tedious for me than you giving me a swivel eyed spiel on why you follow the one true god. So yes, i attempt to get the most out of my hobby by being dispassionate, not least because there is no 'right' answer - just trade offs.

Anyone who tells me that brexit is morally bankrupt is a complete plank, and i would not presume to believe the same in reverse. Saying such would only reveal the utterer as a one dimensional mouthpiece for other peoples ambitions. In which case respecting the value set that informs other peoples choices requires dispassionate discussion .

And a desultory or louche persona is less offenzive that the zealot.

Would you like to continue in explaining how bad i am as a human being?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Kind, compassionate behaviors cannot be fostered among certain ideologies, period. Their only value and content is sadism. This has nothing to do with performative civility.

This is why you change the ideology with kindness and compassion, and civility.

A little while ago you accused me of being "colder" but perhaps the change in perspective is yours?

[Pannonian]

This is why you change the ideology with kindness and compassion, and civility.

A little while ago you accused me of being "colder" but perhaps the change in perspective is yours?

Does logic and evidence-based argument come into it? Ie. can we look at things from an engineering perspective, rather than from a philosophical perspective?

[Montmorency]

Oh dear lord above, you misunderstand the situation entirely!

On a personal level i hold my own values, assiduously seek parties that meet those values, interrogate those parties mercilessly to expose flaws, and constantly reevaluate whether those parties are worthy of my support.

But here, here we do something different: we discuss politics and the values that inform those politics. There would be nothing more tedious than me zelously and earnestly trying to convert you to the 'true' cause. And nothing more tedious for me than you giving me a swivel eyed spiel on why you follow the one true god. So yes, i attempt to get the most out of my hobby by being dispassionate, not least because there is no 'right' answer - just trade offs.

Anyone who tells me that brexit is morally bankrupt is a complete plank, and i would not presume to believe the same in reverse. Saying such would only reveal the utterer as a one dimensional mouthpiece for other peoples ambitions. In which case respecting the value set that informs other peoples choices requires dispassionate discussion .

And a desultory or louche persona is less offenzive that the zealot.

Would you like to continue in explaining how bad i am as a human being?

It's basically insulting. Either you hold no meaningful convictions worth discussion, or you do and you want to preserve your comfort by preemptively insulating yourself.

The offensive part is holding your inevitably tendentious values - which you evidently do take very seriously - and pretending they are beyond challenge because you consider yourself "dispassionate" or because politics is like a "horse race" to you. But the variance in premises and trade-offs is enormous, and the difference in effect is enormous. Politics trades in lives, and it feel as though you want to put value in your values while glibly assuring anyone who disagrees that it's all the same in the end, like a preference in consumer media. You can't have it both ways.

It's easier to respect someone who owns their thumos rather than trolling with it.


This is why you change the ideology with kindness and compassion, and civility.

A little while ago you accused me of being "colder" but perhaps the change in perspective is yours?

In reality, the typically available option is to overpower it. I cannot think of a time in history where kindness, compassion, and civility negotiated social tensions or resolved a crisis (above the individual level).

There is one kernel of truth here though. We are proceeding through a global sacred war for humanity. In any world that averts apocalypse and dystopia, the Right must be eradicated irrevocably. History shows that total war never total, so this is certainly impossible - without the cooperation of many on the Right. In a sense, our fates rest in the hands of people like you.

[Pannonian]

It's basically insulting. Either you hold no meaningful convictions worth discussion, or you do and you want to preserve your comfort by preemptively insulating yourself.

The offensive part is holding your inevitably tendentious values - which you evidently do take very seriously - and pretending they are beyond challenge because you consider yourself "dispassionate" or because politics is like a "horse race" to you. But the variance in premises and trade-offs is enormous, and the difference in effect is enormous. Politics trades in lives, and it feel as though you want to put value in your values while glibly assuring anyone who disagrees that it's all the same in the end, like a preference in consumer media. You can't have it both ways.

It's easier to respect someone who owns their thumos rather than trolling with it.



In reality, the typically available option is to overpower it. I cannot think of a time in history where kindness, compassion, and civility negotiated social tensions or resolved a crisis (above the individual level).

There is one kernel of truth here though. We are proceeding through a global sacred war for humanity. In any world that averts apocalypse and dystopia, the Right must be eradicated irrevocably. History shows that total war never total, so this is certainly impossible - without the cooperation of many on the Right. In a sense, our fates rest in the hands of people like you.

Civil discourse starts with a reasonably common set of values, around which details may be debated. One cannot initiate a revolution with philosophical arguments that cannot be challenged, then expect civil discourse to restart from this new basis.

For leavers, I offer this assertion: the engineering method is the best way of achieving a solution. Do you agree?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Oh dear lord above, you misunderstand the situation entirely!

On a personal level i hold my own values, assiduously seek parties that meet those values, interrogate those parties mercilessly to expose flaws, and constantly reevaluate whether those parties are worthy of my support.

But here, here we do something different: we discuss politics and the values that inform those politics. There would be nothing more tedious than me zelously and earnestly trying to convert you to the 'true' cause. And nothing more tedious for me than you giving me a swivel eyed spiel on why you follow the one true god. So yes, i attempt to get the most out of my hobby by being dispassionate, not least because there is no 'right' answer - just trade offs.

Anyone who tells me that brexit is morally bankrupt is a complete plank, and i would not presume to believe the same in reverse. Saying such would only reveal the utterer as a one dimensional mouthpiece for other peoples ambitions. In which case respecting the value set that informs other peoples choices requires dispassionate discussion .

And a desultory or louche persona is less offenzive that the zealot.

Would you like to continue in explaining how bad i am as a human being?

Quite - though you might have done better to describe the "discussion" of politics as a hobby.

It's also worth pointing out that we also benefit from greater understanding of each other, even if that doesn't lead to agreement.

[Pannonian]

Quite - though you might have done better to describe the "discussion" of politics as a hobby.

It's also worth pointing out that we also benefit from greater understanding of each other, even if that doesn't lead to agreement.

Hobbies begin with a state of comfort and leisure. Hobby clubs begin with a collection of people with a central premise they can broadly agree on. If you smash the central premise and resist all arguments to return to that previous state, what basis is there for the hobby club to continue?

[Pannonian]

Shortly after 1pm on Friday, detectives left the ground-floor offices of the Labour MP for Dewsbury. After talking to Paula Sherriff for more than an hour, West Yorkshire police launched three separate investigations into death threats made against her. All are linked to the fallout from Sherriff’s exchange with Boris Johnson in the Commons on Wednesday night.

...

Amid the hate, one theme emerged: many of the abusers were mimicking the language of the prime minister. “People are parroting his words in the emails we are getting: ‘you voted for the Surrender Act’, ‘capitulation’. People are so angry, and the fact that we have a prime minister who is deliberately stoking up this toxic atmosphere is beyond irresponsible.”

Another theme that swiftly became apparent in the abusive messages was an undisguised hatred for women. Sherriff estimates that 70% of the callers are misogynistic, many inquiring about her menstrual cycle or accusing her of being “hysterical”.

Such experiences are shared five miles up the Spen valley in the village of Gomersal, in the constituency offices of Labour MP Tracy Brabin. She joined the fray last week, reminding Johnson that “words have consequences”.

Few MPs are more qualified to make that point: Brabin took over as MP for Batley and Spen after the death of Cox, who was murdered by a local resident a few days before the EU referendum.

Cox’s murder remains raw for many in this post-industrial corner of West Yorkshire and some believe Johnson’s approach is agitating uncomfortable emotions. Since the Commons exchanges on Wednesday, Brabin’s office has received four times the amount of abuse it would normally expect, the MP says. Cox was murdered outside a nearby library, where she was about to hold a constituency surgery, and already police have advised Brabin that she requires police protection. “We’ve had a number of malicious phone calls and we are going to have to have a police presence in our surgery. We’ve had a load of shite that we don’t normally get,” said the 58-year-old.

...

Of broader concern is what Brabin and Sherriff describe as an emboldening of the far right in their community. On 12 October the far-right anti-Islam group the Yorkshire Patriots are due to march through Dewsbury in one of the first far-right demonstrations in the area since Cox was murdered. It is an upsetting development for both MPs, whose constituencies include significant Muslim populations. “There really is a growing far-right problem around here,” said Sherriff.

Other sources of concern shared by both MPs include what they describe as the prime minister’s questionable attitude towards women. “We have to get it across to people that he is not a champion for women,” said Brabin.

Yet both know that another bruising week in Westminster may have dissuaded future female parliamentary candidates from stepping forward. Sherriff said one female MP had already told her she would not be standing at the next election because of the level of abuse.

“How can I go to high schools around here and say: ‘Become an MP, it’s amazing’? I want to encourage girls to follow suit, but what if they ask: ‘I am worried about being safe?’”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/28/threat-hostility-rise-female-mps-paula-sherriff-tracy-brabin-boris-johnson-brexit

A PM encouraging physical threats to intimidate opponents into giving up. Where's the basis for civil discourse?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

In reality, the typically available option is to overpower it. I cannot think of a time in history where kindness, compassion, and civility negotiated social tensions or resolved a crisis (above the individual level).

There is one kernel of truth here though. We are proceeding through a global sacred war for humanity. In any world that averts apocalypse and dystopia, the Right must be eradicated irrevocably. History shows that total war never total, so this is certainly impossible - without the cooperation of many on the Right. In a sense, our fates rest in the hands of people like you.

Hmmm.

Spread of Christianity, end of slavery, Indian Independence, Civil Rights Movement - all accomplished their goals largely through compassionate argument, not violence. None of these examples are perfect, of course, but then humans are hardly perfect.

A few posts back you implied I would support a Fascist regime if it were sufficiently "Urbane", now you say "the Right" must be "eradicated irrevocably". Who, exactly is the totalitarian, here?

I will not give up my civility, my compassion, my belief in human goodness or my God - you'll have to kill me. How many skulls will you need to build your promised land, I wonder? Finally, I will make this point - there is no sacred war - all human conflict is evil - under all circumstances. Sometimes we do evil things to avert greater evils but we should not kid ourselves. The road to Hell has ever been paved with good intentions.

At least now I know why you disdain good manners, you consider them evil.

How sad.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Hobbies begin with a state of comfort and leisure. Hobby clubs begin with a collection of people with a central premise they can broadly agree on. If you smash the central premise and resist all arguments to return to that previous state, what basis is there for the hobby club to continue?

Is this another "Brexit is evil, you're evil" argument?

If you believe that, justify the impoverishment of Greece.

[Montmorency]

Hmmm.

Spread of Christianity, end of slavery, Indian Independence, Civil Rights Movement - all accomplished their goals largely through compassionate argument, not violence. None of these examples are perfect, of course, but then humans are hardly perfect.


Spread of Christianity, like the spread of Islam, was imposed on subject populations from the top down by converted local grandees and princes, when it wasn't spread by the sword. The case for 20th-21st century conversion processes is a little better, but it's funded by big money (and, incidentally, many far-right organizations), so appealing to "compassionate argument" sounds euphemistic.

Indian independence and the American civil rights movement were professedly non-violent, not civil. If you examine their conduct, you would absolutely recognize them as uncivil - many contemporaries did. You make a big mistake invoking these.

End of slavery especially, that involved bloody war and state coercion. Before that it involved vociferous public declamation, heated debate, and mob politics.

Your examples contradict your position like 90% of the way.


A few posts back you implied I would support a Fascist regime if it were sufficiently "Urbane", now you say "the Right" must be "eradicated irrevocably". Who, exactly is the totalitarian, here?

I will not give up my civility, my compassion, my belief in human goodness or my God - you'll have to kill me. How many skulls will you need to build your promised land, I wonder? Finally, I will make this point - there is no sacred war - all human conflict is evil - under all circumstances. Sometimes we do evil things to avert greater evils but we should not kid ourselves. The road to Hell has ever been paved with good intentions.

You've got it all wrong, I'm not the one offering revolution - the Right are. They're the ones bringing the knife to our throats. All most on the Left ever wanted was a bit more social spending and responsibility, but the Right have recklessly escalated toward dissolving liberal democracy outright. What's worse, they've been working at it for generations, ever since social democracy's ascent, for some even since 1789 or 1517. They hate us for our freedoms pretty much. As I am not a Christian, I don't offer the other cheek. Well, I personally would go meekly, but that doesn't mean others should.

This is a mere evaluation of the forces acting on our world. Civilizational crisis, if not collapse, is overdetermined; a new equilibrium will come to replace the world we have known. The Right is presently on the attack - one sick fuck has referred to it as a "Warsaw ghetto uprising" - and it's bound to get much much worse before it gets better. I say they must be eradicated because there is no reason to believe they will ever stop erupting as a permanent fifth column against the species. Your demographic will play a critical role, it's just a certainty. The Left can't build enough democratic power on its own. If I may allude to American context, it's very unlikely that either socialism or liberalism can (peacefully) defeat the Ahmaris and Trumps without the compliance and preferably allegiance of the Frenchs.

This is about much more (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFgALkCZaQ) than elections mind you. I can only hope you will come to see things more clearly as the world environment deteriorates.


At least now I know why disdain good manners, you consider them evil.

How sad.

No, I think evil people use them as a convenient facade that they don't even respect themselves, and that those who lecture on civility are all too often seeking to impose their advantage through subordination of perceived inferiors. For my part I maintain civility contextually as I judge proper. I perceive my own standards on the Org as generally appropriate, for example, and try to accommodate individual interlocutors' standards as needed.

[Pannonian]

Is this another "Brexit is evil, you're evil" argument?

If you believe that, justify the impoverishment of Greece.

I was talking about a belief that one should not be threatened with violence for one's political beliefs. I was talking about a trust in expert opinion and evidence over faith and rhetoric. I was talking about holding politicians responsible for what they say and do.

It's not just Brexit, although it's how it has manifested in the UK. It's the Bannonite politics that has Trump as its form in the US, and is attempting to spread in other countries too.

[Pannonian]

Apparently, Johnson now wants to replace the Supreme Court that opposed him with his appointees, while the Mail (notoriously a backer of the far right in the 1930s) practically accuses his opponents of treason.

Threatening the opposition with violence, getting control of the judiciary, accusing the opposition of treason. Where is the basis for civil discourse?

[Furunculus]

It's basically insulting. Either you hold no meaningful convictions worth discussion, or you do and you want to preserve your comfort by preemptively insulating yourself.

The offensive part is holding your inevitably tendentious values - which you evidently do take very seriously - and pretending they are beyond challenge because you consider yourself "dispassionate" or because politics is like a "horse race" to you. But the variance in premises and trade-offs is enormous, and the difference in effect is enormous. Politics trades in lives, and it feel as though you want to put value in your values while glibly assuring anyone who disagrees that it's all the same in the end, like a preference in consumer media. You can't have it both ways.

It's easier to respect someone who owns their thumos rather than trolling with it.


I fear you're inventing enemies and slights that don't exist.
"tendentious - (of speech or writing) expressing or supporting a particular opinion that many other people disagree with"

I wasn't aware that backroom had been quietly rebranded as the home of groupthink!
But, to logically connect that statement with the rest of your sentence:
"...pretending they are beyond challenge because..."

When have I ever claimed they were beyond challenge?
I refuse to have them arbitrarily invalidated as unworthy, yes, but that is demanding no more than the common decency I would assign to anyone else: namely refusing the hubris that I have a window into another mans soul, such that I understand the values and motivations that drive their ideology - and consider myself able to pronounce judgement upon it!
"...But the variance in premises and trade-offs is enormous, and the difference in effect is enormous. Politics trades in lives..."

Ah! Perhaps I see now where you're going with this. Rather than it being the fault of you (in presuming to have a unique window through which to judge my soul), perhaps the fault is mine in holding views SO far outside the mainstream that it is legitimate for everyone else to deem these values and motivations as invalid.
Fair enough, in a world of Hitler's and Stalin's perhaps it is possible to be so extreme - to hold views that are so dangerous - that it is a necessary collective act to invalidate them.

In which case I must ask the question: what are these values and motivations that are so thoroughly reprehensible:

Exhibit #1 - The very pits of absolutist refusal to compromise!
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php/152610-EXIT-NEGOTIATIONS?p=2053795098&viewfull=1#post2053795098

sure, i would be content with that as my natural preference, but please recall that i have always said that i recognized that the result wss not decisive enough to justify this 'dream' and that i was happy to maintain britain closely aligned as a (low end) social democracy rather than a market economy (like canada/oz).
im the very heart and soul of compromise. ;)
Yes, I can see that there...

Exhibit #2 - The extremism of my ideological framework:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php/152610-EXIT-NEGOTIATIONS?p=2053794931&viewfull=1#post2053794931

"I am a negative-liberty classical liberal, believing in:
The market economy rather than social democracy
Taxation to achieve public services rather redistribution
Regulation by demonstrable-harm rather than the precautionary-principle
An activist foreign policy rather than platitudes about soft-power
A majoritarian electoral system with adversarial politics rather than coalitions and consensus politics
EU membership might suit those who take the opposite view, but I see it as a ratchet that ceaslessly works to lever british society from the norms that are my preference."
So extreme...

Exhibit #3 - A willingness to impose staggering costs on others to achieve my preferences:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php/152610-EXIT-NEGOTIATIONS?p=2053792539&viewfull=1#post2053792539

"My preferred option" is not no deal, despite your best efforts to spin it so.
And you of course know this to be the case because:
1. I have said that 52:48 is not decisive enough to justify the fundamental transformation of society as a first goal.
2. I have said that I am quite happy to trade a close economic relationship for a continuance of the social democratic model.
3. I have said I would be quite content to see something akin to chequers.
Why not the customs Union? Because:
1. I see the EU has having a naturally protectionist bent, which is why coffee beans have a 5% tariff but ground coffee has a 25% tariff.
2. Trade is a tool of foreign policy.... which would be in the EU's hands rather than our own, and I like our activist foreign policy.
3. Because it is in no way necessary to achieve EFTA, which is a desirable body to influence via membership.
Why not the Single Market? Because:
1. While I have no problem with goods (globally governed anyway), there is no moral or rational justification to for losing control of Services regulation.
2. As well as a general hostility to Services which we do not share, it is once again a tool of foreign policy that I do not want to see slowly suffocated.
3. Because it comes with the flanking policies of social, employment and climate change regulation, the first two of which are first-order reasons to leave.
Why threaten no deal? Because:
1. Every negotiation is only as strong as its ability to walk away.
2. This [IS] a power struggle. We are a significant actor, and it is in the EU's interest to contain and control us. This is geopolitics 101.
3. Because if we're forced into a bad deal, it will poison UK:EU relations and our domestic politics for a generation. Nobody, least of all you, wants that outcome!
Chequers achieves:
1. No regression of flanking policies, which is better than full adherence
2. Common rule-book for Goods, but freedom for Services
3. The ability to join TTIP, which is a worthy goal for geopolitical reasons alone (europe will be a backwater in the 21st century, all the fun will be in asia)
That all said:
1. As long as it achieves the core aims of democratic self-governance I'm not religious about any of the technical items above
2. As long as it retains our geopolitical freedom then i'm happy to compromise on the details, i.e. no unilateral guillotine on access as a threat
3. If we can't achieve the above, then yes, I am content that no-deal is the only way forward.
I have a feeling - much like earlier debates - this is a post I will be referring back to regularly as a result of being serially misrepresented in succeeding months.
Just not sure whether these staggering costs are: a) the possibility of 5-10 years with a half percentage point less growth from no deal, or b) taking away your dream of using the EU to make the UK into a continental style collective social democracy...?

So what we have really concluded is not that I demand protection from having my values and motivations challenged, but that you have deemed my views so far from the 'decent' norm that you should have the privilege of branding them as unfit for public discourse.

The only problem is; I don't think you are capable of demonstrating that there is anything extreme or inflexible in my position such that you are justified in invalidating my values and motivations. Wanting an Oz/Ca style market economy is not extreme, Pancho.

In which case you will have to settle for challenging them - which I am delighted to tell you that you are free to do. :)

But here's the problem - you can't accept that is isn't [my] problem - and why would you when this is how you see the other side:

"I'm not the one offering revolution - the Right are. They're the ones bringing the knife to our throats."
"What's worse, they've been working at it for generations, ever since social democracy's ascent, for some even since 1789 or 1517. They hate us for our freedoms pretty much."
"I say they must be eradicated because there is no reason to believe they will ever stop erupting as a permanent fifth column against the species."
"In any world that averts apocalypse and dystopia, the Right must be eradicated irrevocably."
Oh sure; not me, or him, but those 'others'! "You are okay" (unspoken - because you basically subscribe to a soft version of my values anyway).

Chuckles, I think the problem is yours, not mine. ;)




p.s. with those quotes listed above, i hope i won't find any pious mutterings hereabouts from you on 'violent' political language in the brexit debate...

[Greyblades]

I wasn't aware that backroom had been quietly rebranded as the home of groupthink
I'm guessing you havent perused the trump thread any time in the last 2 years.

[Furunculus]

I'm guessing you havent perused the trump thread any time in the last 2 years.

I have been lucky enough to avoid that thread by and large! :D

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Spread of Christianity, like the spread of Islam, was imposed on subject populations from the top down by converted local grandees and princes, when it wasn't spread by the sword. The case for 20th-21st century conversion processes is a little better, but it's funded by big money (and, incidentally, many far-right organizations), so appealing to "compassionate argument" sounds euphemistic.

Indian independence and the American civil rights movement were professedly non-violent, not civil. If you examine their conduct, you would absolutely recognize them as uncivil - many contemporaries did. You make a big mistake invoking these.

End of slavery especially, that involved bloody war and state coercion. Before that it involved vociferous public declamation, heated debate, and mob politics.

Your examples contradict your position like 90% of the way.

No, this is faulty historiography. By the time Constantine I become Emperor and gave the Church his official support Christianity was probably already the largest religion in the Empire, despite centuries of persecution. Only in England, Saxony and the New World was Christianity primarily a "top down" affair. The end of slavery only involved bloody war in the US. In the UK it was ended via a court case which declared the institution "repugnant" and in our Colonies it was finally banned by Parliament after a century of compassionate argument primarily made by non-conformist Christians.

India and the wider Civil Rights movement achieved their ultimate goals via civil disobedience thereby demonstrating to contemporaries that they were not animals, but fellow humans worthy of civil rights.


You've got it all wrong, I'm not the one offering revolution - the Right are. They're the ones bringing the knife to our throats. All most on the Left ever wanted was a bit more social spending and responsibility, but the Right have recklessly escalated toward dissolving liberal democracy outright. What's worse, they've been working at it for generations, ever since social democracy's ascent, for some even since 1789 or 1517. They hate us for our freedoms pretty much. As I am not a Christian, I don't offer the other cheek. Well, I personally would go meekly, but that doesn't mean others should.

This is a Marxist reading of history - you cannot read back the motivations of a group prior to that group's existence. The American "Upper Class" rose out of the Middle Class after having driven out the Upper Class, to which they have no real relation. In particular, the call for low taxes and the insistence that the poor do not need social welfare is a Middle Class view. In any case, the concepts of "right and left" originate in the 18th Century and your concept of the "Left" emerged only in the 19th with the new underclass in the Industrialised cities.


This is a mere evaluation of the forces acting on our world. Civilizational crisis, if not collapse, is overdetermined; a new equilibrium will come to replace the world we have known. The Right is presently on the attack - one sick fuck has referred to it as a "Warsaw ghetto uprising" - and it's bound to get much much worse before it gets better. I say they must be eradicated because there is no reason to believe they will ever stop erupting as a permanent fifth column against the species. Your demographic will play a critical role, it's just a certainty. The Left can't build enough democratic power on its own. If I may allude to American context, it's very unlikely that either socialism or liberalism can (peacefully) defeat the Ahmaris and Trumps without the compliance and preferably allegiance of the Frenchs.

This is about much more (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFgALkCZaQ) than elections mind you. I can only hope you will come to see things more clearly as the world environment deteriorates.

See what more clearly? The need to abandon my principles? It sounds to me like you want to use the climate crisis as a catalyst for revolution, not the other way around.


No, I think evil people use them as a convenient facade that they don't even respect themselves, and that those who lecture on civility are all too often seeking to impose their advantage through subordination of perceived inferiors. For my part I maintain civility contextually as I judge proper. I perceive my own standards on the Org as generally appropriate, for example, and try to accommodate individual interlocutors' standards as needed.

Whether you consider them evil or a tool of evil is far less relevant than the fact you don't see them as a force for good.

At this point I feel it necessary to refer to a pertinent personal example:

When you contacted me via PM and asked for my views on several topics I gave of my time and answered your questions. When I politely asked you to desist as the conversation was becoming unpleasant you insisted on sending me another wall of text. Was the intention at that point to provoke me into swearing at you and permanently lowering my opinion of you, or was that ultimately not to your advantage? Certainly, I am now disinclined to by sympathetic to your views on a given topic.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I was talking about a belief that one should not be threatened with violence for one's political beliefs. I was talking about a trust in expert opinion and evidence over faith and rhetoric. I was talking about holding politicians responsible for what they say and do.

It's not just Brexit, although it's how it has manifested in the UK. It's the Bannonite politics that has Trump as its form in the US, and is attempting to spread in other countries too.

Well, one should not be threatened with violence for one's beliefs at all - unless those beliefs advocate violence.

The groundswell against the EU dates back to the passage of the Lisbon Treaty without a Referendum - most people recognise that before that UKIP was a very minor fringe, but it became a viable political force around 2009, which is why Nigel Farage was included in the "Leaders' Debates" for the 2010 election.

The reality is that most would decry Boris Johnson's actions were it not for the distraction which is the generally shameful conduct of Parliament. Regardless of your political views you must recognise that the real minority view is not Leave or Remain - but compromise.

The point about expert opinion is often trotted out but the issue with that is that those who voted Leave rejected the expert opinion that they would be poorer not as wrong but as irrelevant. It is the province of experts to provide information, not to tell you how to act on that information in a political context.

[Montmorency]

I fear you're inventing enemies and slights that don't exist.
"tendentious - (of speech or writing) expressing or supporting a particular opinion that many other people disagree with"

I wasn't aware that backroom had been quietly rebranded as the home of groupthink!
But, to logically connect that statement with the rest of your sentence:
"...pretending they are beyond challenge because..."

When have I ever claimed they were beyond challenge?
I refuse to have them arbitrarily invalidated as unworthy, yes, but that is demanding no more than the common decency I would assign to anyone else: namely refusing the hubris that I have a window into another mans soul, such that I understand the values and motivations that drive their ideology - and consider myself able to pronounce judgement upon it!
"...But the variance in premises and trade-offs is enormous, and the difference in effect is enormous. Politics trades in lives..."

Right, so you just said "not least because there is no 'right' answer - just trade offs." This veers close to the long-time (spurious) right-wing caricature that postmodern academics are running around proclaiming that all viewpoints are equally valid.

(Perhaps another thread can engage with the irony of contemporary conservatism becoming thoroughly post-modern in all the ways they dismissed the contemporary Left as. Somehow the accusation frequently turns out to be a confession.)

All viewpoints are not equally valid and almost no one thinks so expect when needing to shield themselves from criticism.

What tradeoffs you think worthwhile or acceptable are a function of your values, and your concrete political behaviors most of all as they substantiate your values.

I never called you extreme, because the above has nothing to do with how extreme or common (being that extremeness is relative) a person's views are. I would call you reckless because you don't justify your positions with an underlying logic - which together with your other comments implies that, for example, the state of British services regulations is an arbitrary game to you - and callous because I don't think you take into adequate consideration what the full range of real-world consequences of your positions would be. This could be a general evaluation of what I've seen from you (though you don't tend to comment on much beyond Brexit). But on Brexit at last I would call you radical as opposed to extreme, because your tolerance window of Brexit is adjusted to have a greater impact on British life than most of what's in Corbyn's manifestos.

When you deflect criticisms of premises and motivations by whining that you are not "extreme" or that all views must be respected, you work harder to set yourself at a distance from the subject than to really demonstrate why your views are not stupid or harmful in their own right. It's virtue signalling of the worst sort in not burdening itself with the need to prove any virtue.


namely refusing the hubris that I have a window into another mans soul, such that I understand the values and motivations that drive their ideology - and consider myself able to pronounce judgement upon it!

It strikes me that none of us will suffer reservations by engaging in the divining of others' values and motivations in all the normal interactions and situations of life, but suddenly when it comes to a conservative's word on politics, well - surely the God-granted human soul is totally inscrutable to us mere mortals!


So what we have really concluded is not that I demand protection from having my values and motivations challenged, but that you have deemed my views so far from the 'decent' norm that you should have the privilege of branding them as unfit for public discourse.

To conclude, this is incorrect on several levels. I take issue with your positions as such, yes, because but I also take issue with how you argue abstractions detached from any description of what it actually means for human beings (without which grounding the subject might as well be a fictional one), and I take issue with the meta-discursive (that is, having to do with the conversation as a conversation) stance of treating values as simultaneously indifferent, respectable, and immune to harsh judgement.

I'm fine with a discourse on any subject, just drop the assumption that you have started from the merely reasonable point. Brexit, for example, can't both be something you strongly prefer and something you don't think can have a right or wrong answer available for incommensurate commitments - because again, that would make you an unserious person, a pisstaker.


p.s. with those quotes listed above, i hope i won't find any pious mutterings hereabouts from you on 'violent' political language in the brexit debate...

Typical deflection, as though pointing out the unremitting class warfare and violence from one side is actually "THE REAL ! ! !" class warfare and violence. *spits*

But I don't think I've commented on violence with respect to Brexit, and I don't know what your own commitments have to do with the relevance of the subject.

Just to show Pannonian just how far in the dust the Yanks are leaving him here's (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1178442759499370496) the President of the United States accusing an opposition Congressman of treason for investigating him (the accusation itself also historically verging on one more impeachable offense circa Andrew Johnson's time).



I made the correction - thanks.

My point to Beskar was two-fold.

1. Socialism claims to be progressive yet in recent memory it has impeded progress more than helped and it recent memory it has been the worst culprit.

2. Many conservatives tend to see history as cyclical rather than progressive, which is to say humanity has not "progressed" so much as we have moved through phases on civilisation and barbarism.

At the moment the West is doing badly and it's not inconceivable our society will collapse - you could make the argument that British society already largely has - even pre-Brexit.

A few problems:

1. It would be a logical error to assert that if progress does not occur in a given time or place that the concept of progress is not valid.
2.It seems difficult to deny that some sort of progress occurred under socialist projects. The costs were high, but it is unclear (to be diplomatic) if capitalism can claim lower costs.

I also want to leave a general note that might become more relevant in any number of threads, that almost all European, modernist ideologies (~1850-1950) maintained a belief in progress and the perfection of the "New Man"* through social-structural or technoscientific advancement. Socialism, communism, liberalism, and fascism held this in common in most variants. Even most conservatives were coming on board (at least in the United States). The only people who really disagreed with "progressive" premises were religious conservatives and the hardcore reactionary monarchist holdouts. That covers most of it.

*Francis Fukuyama the liberal famously thought that global neoliberalism could (not as a matter of necessity) generate a static society and press into amber the Nietzschean "Last Man" (i.e. the triumph of the liberal internationale as the eschaton of progress). But in the same famous work (I have read a little of it!) Fukuyama the conservative pondered the possibility that the internal contradictions of liberal democracy and the external threat of tyranny would generate a reversion to the "First Man" of Hobbes and Hegel.


The point about expert opinion is often trotted out but the issue with that is that those who voted Leave rejected the expert opinion that they would be poorer not as wrong but as irrelevant. It is the province of experts to provide information, not to tell you how to act on that information in a political context.

Now you're thinking like a leftist!

I'll come to your big post tomorrow. It's, er, kinda wrong. By the way Phil, some of this I'm finding hard to square away with my recollection of you, around say 2013-2015, being quite gung-ho about initiating Western wars of choice in Ukraine and Syria. Am I missing something, or have you become more intensely Christian?

[Pannonian]

Just to show Pannonian just how far in the dust the Yanks are leaving him here's (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1178442759499370496) the President of the United States accusing an opposition Congressman of treason for investigating him (the accusation itself also historically verging on one more impeachable offense circa Andrew Johnson's time).

Our lot are threatening the opposition with violence if they don't comply, and according to the Mail, the PM has initiated investigations of the opposition for treason. I think we can agree on one thing though. If any Brit who supports Brexit attempts to lecture Americans on the superiority of the British system and the lacking of the American system, they are lacking self awareness.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

A few problems:

1. It would be a logical error to assert that if progress does not occur in a given time or place that the concept of progress is not valid.
2.It seems difficult to deny that some sort of progress occurred under socialist projects. The costs were high, but it is unclear (to be diplomatic) if capitalism can claim lower costs.

I did not say there is no progress, I said that progress is not linear, and your perception of it as such may simply be a lack of a broad enough historical context.


I also want to leave a general note that might become more relevant in any number of threads, that almost all European, modernist ideologies (~1850-1950) maintained a belief in progress and the perfection of the "New Man"* through social-structural or technoscientific advancement. Socialism, communism, liberalism, and fascism held this in common in most variants. Even most conservatives were coming on board (at least in the United States). The only people who really disagreed with "progressive" premises were religious conservatives and the hardcore reactionary monarchist holdouts. That covers most of it.

*Francis Fukuyama the liberal famously thought that global neoliberalism could (not as a matter of necessity) generate a static society and press into amber the Nietzschean "Last Man" (i.e. the triumph of the liberal internationale as the eschaton of progress). But in the same famous work (I have read a little of it!) Fukuyama the conservative pondered the possibility that the internal contradictions of liberal democracy and the external threat of tyranny would generate a reversion to the "First Man" of Hobbes and Hegel.

As I have been saying for years:

"Rome is falling - but then Rome is always falling."


Now you're thinking like a leftist!

What a wonderful insult.


I'll come to your big post tomorrow. It's, er, kinda wrong. By the way Phil, some of this I'm finding hard to square away with my recollection of you, around say 2013-2015, being quite gung-ho about initiating Western wars of choice in Ukraine and Syria. Am I missing something, or have you become more intensely Christian?

Your recollection is imperfect - I have always decried violence - at least since I left my teenage years behind, anyway. However, just because I consider all violence evil does not mean I will not support violence when necessary. One can recognise the evils the Allies committed during World War II such as the bombing of Dresden and the Nuclear bombs but that does not mean they were not necessary under the circumstances.

In a perfect world we would have convinced Hitler not to massacre 6 million Jews, but we do not live in a perfect world.

I have made this point many times over the years - I am sure others recall it - if you do not I suggest you re-read my posts more carefully before declaring them simply "wrong". I am an historian, I have read Marx, my criticism of him as an historian is professional. I have studied the spread of early Christianity at considerable length and I can cite specific decisions from specific ecumenical councils. I am not especially well known but my work and my opinions have been well received among my peers.

Therefore, if you choose to criticise me on these point I suggest you do so only with the upmost seriousness.

[Montmorency]

I did not say there is no progress, I said that progress is not linear, and your perception of it as such may simply be a lack of a broad enough historical context.

I didn't say it was linear.


As I have been saying for years:

"Rome is falling - but then Rome is always falling."


Uh, OK, but I was leaving a historical note that I think may be implicated in numerous threads, so that it's here for reference. About the context of the idea of progress. That, for example, it was partly popularized in the United States out of postmillenial Christian social reformist movements as far back as the Second Great Awakening. The modernist era was a different time, and WW2 killed or damaged a lot of ideas about utopia and progress.

We're living in a postmodern era, ideologies have adapted to their milieu, so sometimes there's a little confusion when comparing ideologies in broad terms across a long period.


What a wonderful insult.

It's not an insult; I wasn't joking.


However, just because I consider all violence evil does not mean I will not support violence when necessary. One can recognise the evils the Allies committed during World War II such as the bombing of Dresden and the Nuclear bombs but that does not mean they were not necessary under the circumstances.

Those are separate debates to have.


In a perfect world we would have convinced Hitler not to massacre 6 million Jews, but we do not live in a perfect world.

I hope I'm not being gauche when I point out that Hitler did more than kill 6 million Jews, and that there were more Germans than just Hitler.


Therefore, if you choose to criticise me on these point I suggest you do so only with the upmost seriousness.

With all due respect, you have your specialization. I can't recall a time when I would have presumed to debate historical theology with you.




No, this is faulty historiography. By the time Constantine I become Emperor and gave the Church his official support Christianity was probably already the largest religion in the Empire, despite centuries of persecution. Only in England, Saxony and the New World was Christianity primarily a "top down" affair.

What was my assertion? The historical spread of Christianity was largely top-down and coercive. Your counterpoint is the Christianization of the Roman Empire, but of course without official support it took multiple centuries to maybe achieve majority status, and after it did gain official support it was absolutely coercive and top-down. Emperors and cardinals didn't offer compassionate argument, or at any rate this wasn't their operating model. Following the Roman period you neglect the millennium of Christian consolidation in Europe, which again was characterized by coercion and the conversion of elites. Thereafter European colonists spread Christianity throughout the world. I hope I don't need to show you that this was, once again, coercive and top-down. Would you really deny any of this?


The end of slavery only involved bloody war in the US. In the UK it was ended via a court case which declared the institution "repugnant" and in our Colonies it was finally banned by Parliament after a century of compassionate argument primarily made by non-conformist Christians.

If you'll examine the contents of the public debate on slavery, you would see it was quite vehement to put it mildly. Especially on the part of the working class, who were relatively good about recognizing their class interests with respect to slave economies. A court ruling is not compassionate argument. Royal Navy squadrons are not compassionate argument.


India and the wider Civil Rights movement achieved their ultimate goals via civil disobedience thereby demonstrating to contemporaries that they were not animals, but fellow humans worthy of civil rights.

The civil rights movement did not proceed by compassionate argument, it relied on the force of direct action. Compassionate argument may have been involved on an interpersonal basis, as always, in organizing black people and white allies against the apartheid state, but when it came to marching in the streets they weren't there to persuade by speech, nor were their opponents. Same goes with India. Gandhi didn't want to persuade the British of Indian dignity, he wanted to inflict economic pain and political discomfort on the British ruling class.

And, this may be hard for you to hear, but the peaceful civil disobedience movements were girded by the threat of mass violence against the authorities. In India, the imperial government preferred to deal with the non-violent movement rather than risk enflaming armed resistance. Likewise in the American city halls, the Congress and White House, white politicians preferred to seek accommodations with the civil rights movement not because they often believed in the righteousness of its cause, or because they felt voters would reward them, but because they flinched at the prospect of mobs of rioting blacks burning down the cities. Yes indeed, peaceful resistance was not the only game in town. These are historical facts. My own suspicion is that, without a big stick, speaking loudly is more often than not liable to get you killed and little more. A "good cop, bad cop" analogy comes to mind.

So yeah, you remain basically wrong in no small way.


This is a Marxist reading of history - you cannot read back the motivations of a group prior to that group's existence.

Hoo boy. Are you sure you've read Marx? A lot of conservatives claim to have read Marx, but demonstrate little evidence of reading. What I wrote has nothing to do with Marx in fact, and I'm not sure how you drew the connection. What do you mean by "read back the motivations of a group" and what do you mean by "prior to that group's existence?"



The American "Upper Class" rose out of the Middle Class after having driven out the Upper Class, to which they have no real relation. In particular, the call for low taxes and the insistence that the poor do not need social welfare is a Middle Class view. In any case, the concepts of "right and left" originate in the 18th Century and your concept of the "Left" emerged only in the 19th with the new underclass in the Industrialised cities.

W-what???

???

I listed a few observations of political and cultural features of the contemporary Right informed by prolonged, broad and direct (admittedly US-centric) experience bolstered by reading 20th century history, and I don't know what it is you think you're talking about here.


See what more clearly? The need to abandon my principles? It sounds to me like you want to use the climate crisis as a catalyst for revolution, not the other way around.

Catalyst for revolution? There is a revolution at hand whether you like it or not. I never asked for one, I'm no man for trying times.

Our economic, social, and political orders consistently fail to respond to the converging existential catastrophes of our time. Revanchist authoritarianism and fascism sweep the planet as democratic consciousness even among the allegedly "developed" countries takes two steps back for every step forward, with relatively few loci of resilience. Either we go under as a species, or we transition to a ruined and fragmented world dominated by fascists, ancaps and warlords in governmental form. Or - and stay with me here Phil - we organize for cooperative democracy on an unprecedented level and redistribute the world's bounty in an equitable and sustainable way. Those are the possibilities, and all of them are revolutionary from the contemporary perspective. Hence the expression "socialism or barbarism." What I'd like you to recognize sooner rather than later is that whatever you think of one, it's always that or the other.

Would you agree that if one's principles can't answer to the situation at hand, then those principles are or have become worthless and and one ought to discover new ones? At a minimum maintain an awareness that your principles MIGHT not measure up to what is required. :shrug:


Whether you consider them evil or a tool of evil is far less relevant than the fact you don't see them as a force for good.

At this point I feel it necessary to refer to a pertinent personal example:

When you contacted me via PM and asked for my views on several topics I gave of my time and answered your questions. When I politely asked you to desist as the conversation was becoming unpleasant you insisted on sending me another wall of text. Was the intention at that point to provoke me into swearing at you and permanently lowering my opinion of you, or was that ultimately not to your advantage? Certainly, I am now disinclined to by sympathetic to your views on a given topic.

Christ's sake Phil, I know you are a very finicky person but that wall was not for you to respond to (should you want to that's a different story), it was a clarification for you to reflect on at the time and disposition of your choosing. A record of my thoughts so that I wouldn't have to recreate them piecemeal in the future. Would it have helped to relay it at a later date? Never to express what I needed you to recognize would have been intolerable because it would have signified a wasted outpouring of breath. For someone so adamant that others should strive to understand your point of view it stung that you refused to acknowledge my explicit attempt to explain to you how I was doing just that. I have a point of view too.

I imagined that you would digest it at your own discretion and perhaps your updated awareness would manifest in future interactions, but to discover that up to now your only takeaway has been as an opportunity to self-righteously shit all over my sincere outpouring - disappoints me.


###

As an example of right wing perniciousness, for all my life and with increasing intensity elements of the Right, diplomatically described as just beneath the mainstream (with tens of millions of users or readers or viewers or listeners), have demanded, threatened, or predicted civil war against their "illegitimate" liberal enemy. You can find hundreds of examples of reactionary bloodlust and apocalyptic mania if you want to get down and dirty with Google. I was literally driven to tears over one example (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php/152445-Trump-Thread?p=2053779429&viewfull=1#post2053779429) from the Federalist, which I posted about here a year ago.

So far so good and normal (?).

Trump retweeted (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/30/opinion/trump-civil-war.html) one such [EDIT: Important to note this was a Fox News guest] in connection to the possibility of his removal from office, after he had already invoked investigating a ranking Democratic Congressman for treason. The mainstay of all robust republican government being of course the impunity of the executive to plunder and to persecute...

Then the Twitter account of one of the largest and most notorious right-wing militia organizations, the Oath Keepers, which has already threatened civil war directly to Democratic politicians such as California's governor and has been vocally obsessed with civil war since at least the Obama years, responded with the following (https://twitter.com/Oathkeepers/status/1178547878240772096):


This whole thread is important to read. The term “civil war” is increasingly on people’s tongue. And not just “cold civil war” - full-blown “hot” civil war. Fact is patriots consider the left to be domestic enemies of the Constitution bent on the destruction of the Republic...

And we consider all that they are doing to impeach the President to be be illegitimate pretexts to simply undo the 2016 election results that they don’t like. They expected to win and see Trump as an interloper and impediment to their “rightful” power. @StewartRhodesOK

Did you know that before 1869 locomotives had no general brakes and each car had to be individually levered to a halt? Trains used to be the #1 cause of violent death before the automobile, you know! But the thing about slow-moving train wrecks is that you can see them coming. Many saw this one coming since 2016.

I never heard of this band (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7dBBCHYcZs) before.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

You're doing that thing again where you write four times as much as your interlocutor.


I didn't say it was linear.

The point was originally meant for Beskar in any case. Despite which, you seem to subscribe to the same concept of progress and human improvement - I do not.


Uh, OK, but I was leaving a historical note that I think may be implicated in numerous threads, so that it's here for reference. About the context of the idea of progress. That, for example, it was partly popularized in the United States out of postmillenial Christian social reformist movements as far back as the Second Great Awakening. The modernist era was a different time, and WW2 killed or damaged a lot of ideas about utopia and progress.

We're living in a postmodern era, ideologies have adapted to their milieu, so sometimes there's a little confusion when comparing ideologies in broad terms across a long period.

Well, I'm not a post-modernist. Besides, my historical note is pithier.


It's not an insult; I wasn't joking.

If you weren't joking it's definitely an insult. I disdain any connection to someone else's conception of a political ideology or stance.


Those are separate debates to have.

The Fall of Man isn't a concept you are going to be able to debunk to anyone's satisfaction but your own.


I hope I'm not being gauche when I point out that Hitler did more than kill 6 million Jews, and that there were more Germans than just Hitler.

I rather think you are because you should know my point was about the individual - no the collective. I picked Hitler because everyone hates Hitler.


With all due respect, you have your specialization. I can't recall a time when I would have presumed to debate historical theology with you.

My specialisation is not theology, and you presume to lecture me on my reading of historical processes.


What was my assertion? The historical spread of Christianity was largely top-down and coercive. Your counterpoint is the Christianization of the Roman Empire, but of course without official support it took multiple centuries to maybe achieve majority status, and after it did gain official support it was absolutely coercive and top-down. Emperors and cardinals didn't offer compassionate argument, or at any rate this wasn't their operating model. Following the Roman period you neglect the millennium of Christian consolidation in Europe, which again was characterized by coercion and the conversion of elites. Thereafter European colonists spread Christianity throughout the world. I hope I don't need to show you that this was, once again, coercive and top-down. Would you really deny any of this?

I'd deny this narrative is anything other than out of date as a reading of history. Christianity was spread principally by women and slaves before it was adopted by Constantine I, he was converted by his sister and his secretary - who was a slave as I recall. It was not until Theodosius the Great in the 370's that Nicene Christianity became the official Imperial Church as we call it. Even so, Pagans continued to enjoy full rights as citizens and private religious freedom until Justinian explicitly linked Christianity with citizenship (thereby disenfranchising Jews too).

Meanwhile, in the West the Franks and Visigoths gradually abandoned the Arian Christianity of forefathers for the Nicene Christianity of their subjects - bottom up. Only in England did the elite convert first, followed by their subjects - even there the women tended to convert first which is still effectively "bottom up".

If you want real "coercion" you need to go as far forward as Charlemagne, after the Arab Conquests. From then onward Christianity does not really "spread" until the Renaissance - excepting the Baltic Crusades. That is not to say that after Charlemagne there was not increasing persecution of non-conformists like Cathars and later Waldensians and Lollards. The Crusades in the Middle East aren't really relevant here, btw, because there's little evidence of the Crusader States making any effort to enforce religious conformity.


If you'll examine the contents of the public debate on slavery, you would see it was quite vehement to put it mildly. Especially on the part of the working class, who were relatively good about recognizing their class interests with respect to slave economies. A court ruling is not compassionate argument. Royal Navy squadrons are not compassionate argument.

Do you know to which court ruling I refer?

The Royal Navy was not used to "end slavery" so much as it was used to prevent slave trading within British territories after we had banned it.


The civil rights movement did not proceed by compassionate argument, it relied on the force of direct action. Compassionate argument may have been involved on an interpersonal basis, as always, in organizing black people and white allies against the apartheid state, but when it came to marching in the streets they weren't there to persuade by speech, nor were their opponents. Same goes with India. Gandhi didn't want to persuade the British of Indian dignity, he wanted to inflict economic pain and political discomfort on the British ruling class.

And, this may be hard for you to hear, but the peaceful civil disobedience movements were girded by the threat of mass violence against the authorities. In India, the imperial government preferred to deal with the non-violent movement rather than risk enflaming armed resistance. Likewise in the American city halls, the Congress and White House, white politicians preferred to seek accommodations with the civil rights movement not because they often believed in the righteousness of its cause, or because they felt voters would reward them, but because they flinched at the prospect of mobs of rioting blacks burning down the cities. Yes indeed, peaceful resistance was not the only game in town. These are historical facts. My own suspicion is that, without a big stick, speaking loudly is more often than not liable to get you killed and little more. A "good cop, bad cop" analogy comes to mind.

So yeah, you remain basically wrong in no small way.

If this were true then independence would have come sooner for India. You have been describing a war for annihilation, no quarter, that it not "civil", or civilised.


Hoo boy. Are you sure you've read Marx? A lot of conservatives claim to have read Marx, but demonstrate little evidence of reading. What I wrote has nothing to do with Marx in fact, and I'm not sure how you drew the connection. What do you mean by "read back the motivations of a group" and what do you mean by "prior to that group's existence?"

I have read the Communist Manifesto several times as it is meant to be read, in one sitting - I read Marx against his close contemporary Charles Dickens, specifically Dickens' Bleak House which was published a few years later.

I also read some of Marx's historiography - in which he equates the class-struggle of 19th Century Britain (where he habitually resided) with what he perceived as the "struggle" of the medieval serf against his lord and the "struggle" of the Journeyman Craftsman against the Guild. The problem is that Marx essentially invented these "struggles" to fit his narrative of perpetual class-war. The reality is that the Communist Manifesto is a product of specific 19th Century circumstances that pertain to specific places and times - and most specifically to Industrial Britain and its "Dark Satanic Mills".

You are making the same error as Marx is trying to cast the current conflict between Right and Left as going back centuries - it doesn't - it goes back less than 150 years, prior to that what was considered the "Left" is part of what you now consider the "Right".


W-what???

???

I listed a few observations of political and cultural features of the contemporary Right informed by prolonged, broad and direct (admittedly US-centric) experience bolstered by reading 20th century history, and I don't know what it is you think you're talking about here.

You argued some have been attacking Socialist values as far back as 1517 or even 1789 - the forces at play now did not exist then. Hence, there is no continuity of conflict. It's like arguing Christianity and Islam have been "At war for two millennia" just because Christianity has a few left-overs from Roman society and modern Iranian are Muslims.

As I said, this is an essentially Marxist reading of history.


Catalyst for revolution? There is a revolution at hand whether you like it or not. I never asked for one, I'm no man for trying times.

Our economic, social, and political orders consistently fail to respond to the converging existential catastrophes of our time. Revanchist authoritarianism and fascism sweep the planet as democratic consciousness even among the allegedly "developed" countries takes two steps back for every step forward, with relatively few loci of resilience. Either we go under as a species, or we transition to a ruined and fragmented world dominated by fascists, ancaps and warlords in governmental form. Or - and stay with me here Phil - we organize for cooperative democracy on an unprecedented level and redistribute the world's bounty in an equitable and sustainable way. Those are the possibilities, and all of them are revolutionary from the contemporary perspective. Hence the expression "socialism or barbarism." What I'd like you to recognize sooner rather than later is that whatever you think of one, it's always that or the other.

Western societies have been in decline since the end of World War II, Americans have been slower to recognise this than others because America had a late peak after WW II but your country has been in decline ever since you bailed out of the Vietnam War.

Democracy as you understand it has only ever been valued in Northern Europe and the Anglo-sphere, the political and social landscape of the rest of the World, including Southern Europe, has always made it a poor fit. That is not to say these regions of the world are incapable of good government but the reality is the British and Americans invented "Liberal Democracy" for themselves, not others.

I remind you that, at present, the revolution is being televised and everything looks much bigger, scarier and more immediate on TV.


Would you agree that if one's principles can't answer to the situation at hand, then those principles are or have become worthless and and one ought to discover new ones? At a minimum maintain an awareness that your principles MIGHT not measure up to what is required. :shrug:

If you think values like kindness, compassion, charity, honesty and concern for others before yourself are no longer applicable I don't know what to tell you.


Christ's sake Phil, I know you are a very finicky person but that wall was not for you to respond to (should you want to that's a different story), it was a clarification for you to reflect on at the time and disposition of your choosing. A record of my thoughts so that I wouldn't have to recreate them piecemeal in the future. Would it have helped to relay it at a later date? Never to express what I needed you to recognize would have been intolerable because it would have signified a wasted outpouring of breath. For someone so adamant that others should strive to understand your point of view it stung that you refused to acknowledge my explicit attempt to explain to you how I was doing just that. I have a point of view too.

I imagined that you would digest it at your own discretion and perhaps your updated awareness would manifest in future interactions, but to discover that up to now your only takeaway has been as an opportunity to self-righteously shit all over my sincere outpouring - disappoints me.

You should have taken seriously my polite request to desist, I would not have made it if I had any further wish to engage with your attempts to undermine my world view. In your attempt to persuade me you attacked my character and my intellectual integrity. Being a fairly conventional fellow I feel obliged to respond to someone when they write to me, which is why I responded to you initially, I enjoyed no part of our exchange which I would have thought was obvious from the tone of my replies.

If you had wanted something for me to reflect upon you might have suggested a good book, instead of another confrontational private message that obligated me to respond.


As an example of right wing perniciousness, for all my life and with increasing intensity elements of the Right, diplomatically described as just beneath the mainstream (with tens of millions of users or readers or viewers or listeners), have demanded, threatened, or predicted civil war against their "illegitimate" liberal enemy. You can find hundreds of examples of reactionary bloodlust and apocalyptic mania if you want to get down and dirty with Google. I was literally driven to tears over one example (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php/152445-Trump-Thread?p=2053779429&viewfull=1#post2053779429) from the Federalist, which I posted about here a year ago.

So far so good and normal (?).

Trump retweeted (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/30/opinion/trump-civil-war.html) one such [EDIT: Important to note this was a Fox News guest] in connection to the possibility of his removal from office, after he had already invoked investigating a ranking Democratic Congressman for treason. The mainstay of all robust republican government being of course the impunity of the executive to plunder and to persecute...

Then the Twitter account of one of the largest and most notorious right-wing militia organizations, the Oath Keepers, which has already threatened civil war directly to Democratic politicians such as California's governor and has been vocally obsessed with civil war since at least the Obama years, responded with the following (https://twitter.com/Oathkeepers/status/1178547878240772096):



Did you know that before 1869 locomotives had no general brakes and each car had to be individually levered to a halt? Trains used to be the #1 cause of violent death before the automobile, you know! But the thing about slow-moving train wrecks is that you can see them coming. Many saw this one coming since 2016.

I never heard of this band (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7dBBCHYcZs) before.

About nine years ago I was in a pub talking to a friendly Irishman when he started saying how he wanted to kill then-Prime Minister David Cameron. Mr Cameron had not at that point been in office very long and had not, so far as I was aware, done anything much to justify such a sentiment. Nonetheless, this only slightly tipsy Irishman was all for getting a gun and shooting him dead.

People are terrible and our modern society rewards them - reddit is a fine example of this fact, or rather a terrible example.

You do not oppose such people by adopting their rhetoric, you oppose such people via reasoned argument, thereby demonstrating to those watching the weakness of their position and their moral character.

[Montmorency]

You're doing that thing again where you write four times as much as your interlocutor.

I checked and it's about twice as long as the posts I was replying to. Are we writing under some editorial constraint? Wouldn't you think I was making light of you if I were terse?


The point was originally meant for Beskar in any case. Despite which, you seem to subscribe to the same concept of progress and human improvement - I do not.

I maintain that young people today are improved over their antecedents in many domains, and not any worse in most of the rest. And it's evident throughout the developed world. That demands explanation at a minimum.


If you weren't joking it's definitely an insult. I disdain any connection to someone else's conception of a political ideology or stance.

The way you say that implies you think you have zero ideas in common with any person in general. Aren't you curious how I could make that comment? Whither civility? (To cut to the chase, leftists also often insist that expert opinion should inform the popular will and augment its implementation, not circumscribe them.)


The Fall of Man isn't a concept you are going to be able to debunk to anyone's satisfaction but your own.

The Fall of Man justifies violence whenever you personally think it is justified? I was merely making the obvious point that when violence is justified, including specific cases, is a matter for debate. (Don't take that as an obligation.)


I rather think you are because you should know my point was about the individual - no the collective. I picked Hitler because everyone hates Hitler.

That's my point - don't fall into Great Man thinking.


My specialisation is not theology, and you presume to lecture me on my reading of historical processes.

Well, OK, Medieval Studies, or what was it? I do presume to disagree with you on select matters, yes - that seems unavoidable to me.


I'd deny this narrative is anything other than out of date as a reading of history.


Wow, there's is a significant disagreement over the facts. In your capacity as a scholar who would have command of the relevant literature I appeal that you refer to me some sources that contradict the following. Here is my understanding of the situation in late antiquity:

The story of women and slaves driving the spread of Christianity is the outdated historiography; it appealed to a broad cross-section of society throughout its early existence. Christianity was not a clandestine or marginal religion in the 3rd century, churches owned a lot of property. Roman Christian literature and organization was heavily focused on identifying and suppressing heresies and paganism. Christians held Roman public offices, which naturally were used for all kinds of coercion - but this included the religious sort. The idea that powerful Christian sects and individuals just became passive victims of pagan oppression, but when officially licensed treated pagans with tolerance is wrong. Constantine himself persecuted pagans and tried to enforce his doctrinal Christianity. When Christianity is the state religion of the land, it should be unsurprising that remaining pagan imposes severe limitations to advancement of all sorts at best, and that conversion is incentivized. State persecution of heretics defined the Empire all the way through the fall of the West. I don't know what the successor Germanic kingdoms were doing, but I doubt they were very accommodating.

As for Medieval elite conversion events, I'm thinking of Franks and other mainland Germanic tribes, Nordic/Viking conversions, and Russia and most of Eastern Europe. All involved missionaries converting the aristocracy. Christianity beyond Europe, such as the Caucasus or Axum, spread by elite conversion and imposition as well.

At least you won't go so far as to contest my account of colonial Christianization.


Do you know to which court ruling I refer?

The Royal Navy was not used to "end slavery" so much as it was used to prevent slave trading within British territories after we had banned it.

Where are you going with this?

Security and military resources are enlisted in the enforcement of policy, such as that against slavery, to this day. Slavery doesn't just end when the government says it does, you need enforcement. Without enforcement in government there is only voluntary cooperation and civic education, which can be worked out in domains like traffic law compliance and information sharing to some extent, but slavers are notoriously non-altruistic or ethical.


If this were true then independence would have come sooner for India.

Non-sequitur.


You have been describing a war for annihilation, no quarter, that it not "civil", or civilised.

No?


You are making the same error as Marx is trying to cast the current conflict between Right and Left as going back centuries - it doesn't - it goes back less than 150 years, prior to that what was considered the "Left" is part of what you now consider the "Right".

You argued some have been attacking Socialist values as far back as 1517 or even 1789 - the forces at play now did not exist then. Hence, there is no continuity of conflict. It's like arguing Christianity and Islam have been "At war for two millennia" just because Christianity has a few left-overs from Roman society and modern Iranian are Muslims.

As I said, this is an essentially Marxist reading of history.

I think I see the misunderstanding. It has nothing to do with Marx. When I mentioned 1789 and 1517, you thought I was saying there has been a continuous organized conflict between monolithic "Left and Right" since those times. I was only using those years to signify the ongoing desire among the Pre-modernist Right to overturn the social and political transformations of the French Revolution and (at least the secular aspects) of the Protestant Reformation.

But of course these movements do have continuity with past forms of conservatism and reaction. To reflect it against a little personal context, years ago I had a sort of simplistic understanding of historical transitions. I just assumed things like, after WW1 no one was REALLY a monarchist anymore, after WW2 no one was REALLY a fascist anymore, after the collapse of the USSR no one was REALLY a socialist anymore... History and "progress" seemed much more clean-cut to me. To the point that as a child I imagined that after the Arab conquest of Egypt there were no more "original" Egyptians left, that after the Turkish migrations to Anatolia there were no more Anatolians anymore - just "Turks."

EDIT: To relate to earlier in the post, at some point I had even thought there was a sharp demarcation in Roman history where most people were pagan, then - boom, everyone's Christian. But there were pagans in high places writing bitter accounts even into the 6th century after all.

Eventually I realized the fuzziness of historical (and geographical) boundaries and the continuity of peoples, places, and ideas.

As Luke Skywalker says (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNTLC_uiGFA&t=6s) in The Last Jedi, "No one's ever really gone."

I do like this Internet-famous comment (http://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288) on the eternal conservative though, very apt if overly reductive.


Western societies have been in decline since the end of World War II, Americans have been slower to recognise this than others because America had a late peak after WW II but your country has been in decline ever since you bailed out of the Vietnam War.

How do you define decline? I would probably disagree, barring some cunning semantic device.


Democracy as you understand it has only ever been valued in Northern Europe and the Anglo-sphere, the political and social landscape of the rest of the World, including Southern Europe, has always made it a poor fit. That is not to say these regions of the world are incapable of good government but the reality is the British and Americans invented "Liberal Democracy" for themselves, not others.

Democracy as I understand it has never been practiced in Europe or America on a large scale. Liberal democracy still ultimately veers into oligarchy. Real democracy is horizontal power (though still not necessarily "direct" in governmental form).


If you think values like kindness, compassion, charity, honesty and concern for others before yourself are no longer applicable I don't know what to tell you.

You know that's not what I'm saying and you know your anodyne list doesn't enumerate the principles that go into how society should be ordered, which is what's germane.

Here (http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2019/10/american-tpm-editor-attends-labour-party-conference-writes-a-thing) is an example in the Labour Party of principles failing their test that you should read (or pure stubbornness without principles, but whatever). The failure of Labour's and Momentum's principles are 'merely' in the electoral realm of increasing the Party's advantage. The corollary is that they remain distant from their other-principled goals of improving the common weal. The principles that most need development are the ones conducive to saving the world pretty much. Whatever those are.


You should have taken seriously my polite request to desist, I would not have made it if I had any further wish to engage with your attempts to undermine my world view. In your attempt to persuade me you attacked my character and my intellectual integrity. Being a fairly conventional fellow I feel obliged to respond to someone when they write to me, which is why I responded to you initially, I enjoyed no part of our exchange which I would have thought was obvious from the tone of my replies.

If you had wanted something for me to reflect upon you might have suggested a good book, instead of another confrontational private message that obligated me to respond.

I desisted from argument but not from explanation. The challenge is that you're not accepting the distinction.

From my perspective, it is important to indicate flaws in the thought process; there's no right to have them go unsaid, which is furthermore unhealthy.

Didn't I topline in the last message that you weren't obligated to restart discussion?

How about a compromise: I'm too insensitive and you're too sensitive. Ultimately if I couldn't come up with an approach that didn't upset you I'm a failure.


About nine years ago I was in a pub talking to a friendly Irishman when he started saying how he wanted to kill then-Prime Minister David Cameron. Mr Cameron had not at that point been in office very long and had not, so far as I was aware, done anything much to justify such a sentiment. Nonetheless, this only slightly tipsy Irishman was all for getting a gun and shooting him dead.

People are terrible and our modern society rewards them - reddit is a fine example of this fact, or rather a terrible example.

So did he want to kill him because he hated English politicians as an Irishman? If not, I've heard of a "liberal" who decided Aryans are good and therefore Jews are bad because of something (?) she read on Wikipedia. Random maniacs are one thing; massive cultural ecosystems with millions of members, sophisticated messaging, and representation at all levels of political, social, and economic power - obviously a different ballpark. The fish always rots from the head down when it comes to violence and tyranny. Don't focus on individuals.


You do not oppose such people by adopting their rhetoric

I'm not calling for adopting their rhetoric, but for mass recognition of the implications and extant effects of their ideology and their long-consistent and escalating practices. In fact, I'm certain that right-wing rhetorical styles are inherently ineffective on and repugnant to people on the Left.


you oppose such people via reasoned argument, thereby demonstrating to those watching the weakness of their position and their moral character.

It just doesn't work that way and never has. What we should be trying to persuade people of is the immediate mortal threat of global Reaction, like a Thunberg for fascism. Merely trying to confront their arguments directly is of little use as a strategy toward building power because the lies and the money behind them are unlimited and the public does not primarily respond to reasoned argument in the first place, which as a fan of Classical philosophy you should acknowledge. The Right certainly haven't built power through any form of reasoned argumentation (lol).

What CAN be done - merely winning a few elections is not adequate to the scale of the problem - I don't know. Psychology and education are a definitive barrier here, because there really is a consistent psychological profile to the sort of people who are willing to destroy for narrow gain or who are willing to be easily manipulated. You only need a third to passively watch another third eliminate the last third and whatnot.


You're all allowed to laugh at our political meltdown and we don't complain - the least you can do is reciprocate the indulgence.

Brits are free to comment on American politics, but we prefer they come with the mindset that words and ideas mean something and can be related to facts or knowledge - rather than being mere weapons to annoy or to destroy.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I checked and it's about twice as long as the posts I was replying to. Are we writing under some editorial constraint? Wouldn't you think I was making light of you if I were terse?

I tend to strive for a 1:1 ratio - that way it doesn't escalate to someone spending three hours and two cups of coffee to reply.


I maintain that young people today are improved over their antecedents in many domains, and not any worse in most of the rest. And it's evident throughout the developed world. That demands explanation at a minimum.

I disagree, the majority of them didn't vote in the referendum and then complained their parents were "selfish" for wanting to leave the EU. That's evidence of stupidity and ingratitude, not to mention cynicism. They complain about the environment by tweeting from the iPhones.


The way you say that implies you think you have zero ideas in common with any person in general. Aren't you curious how I could make that comment? Whither civility? (To cut to the chase, leftists also often insist that expert opinion should inform the popular will and augment its implementation, not circumscribe them.)

I consider political ideologies dangerous when people propose to put them into practice. Ideaological systems should be confined to universities and not let out.


The Fall of Man justifies violence whenever you personally think it is justified? I was merely making the obvious point that when violence is justified, including specific cases, is a matter for debate. (Don't take that as an obligation.)

No, violence is never "justified", the Fall of Man explains the contradiction of why humans sometimes find it necessary to act in unjust ways. It's because we're basically bad at being people.


That's my point - don't fall into Great Man thinking.

Then I respectfully submit that your point was redundant because no Backroomer now posting is so very foolish. After a decade I take it as read that you are not a stupid man.


Well, OK, Medieval Studies, or what was it? I do presume to disagree with you on select matters, yes - that seems unavoidable to me.

Fine, you presume to debate with me about my expert subject and subjects connected to it - previous denials were merely a rhetorical device.


Wow, there's is a significant disagreement over the facts. In your capacity as a scholar who would have command of the relevant literature I appeal that you refer to me some sources that contradict the following. Here is my understanding of the situation in late antiquity:

You don't say.


The story of women and slaves driving the spread of Christianity is the outdated historiography; it appealed to a broad cross-section of society throughout its early existence.

Whilst this is true early pogroms initiated under Nero and Domitian severely impeded its spread among the Senatorial class whilst not really doing anything to impede its spread among the underclass. Further, early Christian Churches (such as one found a few years ago in Israel) show that women were highly active in funding the early Church. Finally, you have to consider that men, particularly men who were citizens, were also being evangelised by other cults such as that of Mithras which explicitly excluded women.


Christianity was not a clandestine or marginal religion in the 3rd century, churches owned a lot of property.

Less true by the 4th Century because Diocletian had seized a lot of it. Also, ownership of "property" in this period does not equate to "church building". Essentially, Christianity in this period was similar to modern cults, it was socially and politically a fringe element - despite which is was probably the largest cult by the time of Constantine's conversion. Constantine was nonethless the first Emperor to start building or converting Churches - creating edifices to the Christian faith.


Roman Christian literature and organization was heavily focused on identifying and suppressing heresies and paganism.

Early Christians conducted vehement debates but the hunting of "heresy" is something that only begins after the Council of Nicaea when Constantine forces the Bishops to agree basic doctrines. In the following decades Eusobius writes his Ecclesiastical History and then Epiphanius writes the Panarion, which is the first work to catalogue and describe heresies from an Orthodox perspective - at the end of the 4th Century, under Theodosius I.


Christians held Roman public offices, which naturally were used for all kinds of coercion - but this included the religious sort.

In the 3rd Century, under Diocletian, this was strictly illegal. Prior to that it would have been technically illegal in most cases because Roman officers would have needed to observe Roman religious rituals. So any Christians would have been clandestine or at best tolerated as irregular.


The idea that powerful Christian sects and individuals just became passive victims of pagan oppression, but when officially licensed treated pagans with tolerance is wrong.

I never said all Christians were pacifists - I said that prior to Constantine I Christianity did not spread by coercion. Picking at me for some example you can find is a bit pretty - it's like finding a Catholic prist who fathered a child and arguing that because of this bad apple Catholic priests generally ignore the rule about celibacy. Once Constantine became Emperor things did change - as I recall some Christian sects systematically targeted Mithraists. That being said, the Empire itself remainded largely religiously pluralistic.


Constantine himself persecuted pagans and tried to enforce his doctrinal Christianity.

I'll require a citation if you're going to argue he "persecuted" non-Christians. Certainly, he increasingly promoted Christianity - it is why he went to war with his more religiously pluralistic brother-in-law (who may also actually have been a closet Christian).


When Christianity is the state religion of the land, it should be unsurprising that remaining pagan imposes severe limitations to advancement of all sorts at best, and that conversion is incentivized. State persecution of heretics defined the Empire all the way through the fall of the West. I don't know what the successor Germanic kingdoms were doing, but I doubt they were very accommodating.

Arrian Christianity and Nicene Christianity largely co-existed until the Fall of the West. Many Romano-German officers were Arrian (though probably not Flavius Stilicho). After he Conquered Italy Theoderic the great was generally tollerant of Nicene Christians, though he became less so over the years as he increasingly clashed with the senate - ultimately leading him to imprison Boethius and abolish the position of Consul. It was not until the 4th century that Stilicho closed the temple of the Vestal Virgins and and burned the Sibylline Books - prior to that restrictions of Pagans were quite light.

In fact, the concept of persecuting other Christians generally is more a late-medieval thing.


As for Medieval elite conversion events, I'm thinking of Franks and other mainland Germanic tribes, Nordic/Viking conversions, and Russia and most of Eastern Europe. All involved missionaries converting the aristocracy. Christianity beyond Europe, such as the Caucasus or Axum, spread by elite conversion and imposition as well.

The Russ and Norse were converted after Charlemagne, which was my cut-off point for the early spread of Christianity. The Franks were already largely Christian by the time Clovis became Catholic... at the insistence of his wife. Given that my point really pertains to the period before Constantine I officially embraced Christianity I think you're picking only small holes, at best.


At least you won't go so far as to contest my account of colonial Christianization.

Again - not an idiot. If you want to contest this point further, that Early Christianity was spread with fire and the Sword like early Islam you'll have to start a new thread - we've dragged this one far enough off topic.


Where are you going with this?

Security and military resources are enlisted in the enforcement of policy, such as that against slavery, to this day. Slavery doesn't just end when the government says it does, you need enforcement. Without enforcement in government there is only voluntary cooperation and civic education, which can be worked out in domains like traffic law compliance and information sharing to some extent, but slavers are notoriously non-altruistic or ethical.

I'm going with, "I know this history better than you do."


Non-sequitur.

If you say so - according to Indian historiography they had multiple "Wars of Independence" that went exactly nowhere until Ghandi went on hunger strike.


No?

Last week you wanted to utterly destroy the Right, yes?


I think I see the misunderstanding. It has nothing to do with Marx. When I mentioned 1789 and 1517, you thought I was saying there has been a continuous organized conflict between monolithic "Left and Right" since those times. I was only using those years to signify the ongoing desire among the Pre-modernist Right to overturn the social and political transformations of the French Revolution and (at least the secular aspects) of the Protestant Reformation.

I'm sorry, but this really is Marxist historiography. There is not "pre-Modernist Right". The concept does not exist, trying to impose it is grossly anachronistic. In the case of the Protestants it's they who are the reactionary, intolerant, regressive element.


But of course these movements do have continuity with past forms of conservatism and reaction. To reflect it against a little personal context, years ago I had a sort of simplistic understanding of historical transitions. I just assumed things like, after WW1 no one was REALLY a monarchist anymore, after WW2 no one was REALLY a fascist anymore, after the collapse of the USSR no one was REALLY a socialist anymore... History and "progress" seemed much more clean-cut to me. To the point that as a child I imagined that after the Arab conquest of Egypt there were no more "original" Egyptians left, that after the Turkish migrations to Anatolia there were no more Anatolians anymore - just "Turks."

EDIT: To relate to earlier in the post, at some point I had even thought there was a sharp demarcation in Roman history where most people were pagan, then - boom, everyone's Christian. But there were pagans in high places writing bitter accounts even into the 6th century after all.

Eventually I realized the fuzziness of historical (and geographical) boundaries and the continuity of peoples, places, and ideas.

As Luke Skywalker says (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNTLC_uiGFA&t=6s) in The Last Jedi, "No one's ever really gone."

I do like this Internet-famous comment (http://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288) on the eternal conservative though, very apt if overly reductive.

Again, progressive vs conservative is a modern concept. Applying this to history before it's articulated is a gross distortion.


How do you define decline? I would probably disagree, barring some cunning semantic device.

All measures, 100 years ago we had an unassailable advantage in science, technology, economic wealth and military power


Democracy as I understand it has never been practiced in Europe or America on a large scale. Liberal democracy still ultimately veers into oligarchy. Real democracy is horizontal power (though still not necessarily "direct" in governmental form).

OK - you don't believe in practical government - you prefer ideals - noted.


You know that's not what I'm saying and you know your anodyne list doesn't enumerate the principles that go into how society should be ordered, which is what's germane.

Here (http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2019/10/american-tpm-editor-attends-labour-party-conference-writes-a-thing) is an example in the Labour Party of principles failing their test that you should read (or pure stubbornness without principles, but whatever). The failure of Labour's and Momentum's principles are 'merely' in the electoral realm of increasing the Party's advantage. The corollary is that they remain distant from their other-principled goals of improving the common weal. The principles that most need development are the ones conducive to saving the world pretty much. Whatever those are.

I feel like you're attacking my principles, though, so those are my principles. If you struggle to accept that it's because you're trying to fit me into an American Right-Wing Christian pigeon hole.

Frankly, I think you're doing the same to Furunculus - rather than engaging us and trying to understand our positions you just filter what we say through your preconceptions as a way to understand it.

Consider - most Brits, including myself, would consider that the Average American view of healthcare is insane.


I desisted from argument but not from explanation. The challenge is that you're not accepting the distinction.

From my perspective, it is important to indicate flaws in the thought process; there's no right to have them go unsaid, which is furthermore unhealthy.

Didn't I topline in the last message that you weren't obligated to restart discussion?

How about a compromise: I'm too insensitive and you're too sensitive. Ultimately if I couldn't come up with an approach that didn't upset you I'm a failure.

I wrote:


Those are my views on the points you raise. Given that this discussion has reached an impasse and has become unpleasantly personal I would prefer not to continue it.


Kind Regards,


Philip


What part of this seemed like an opening to offer more opinions? Especially since you wrote to me first? That's the great part about etiquite (which I am breaking in a probably futile attempt to explain this) - you don't need to be sensitive, you just need to follow the rules.


So did he want to kill him because he hated English politicians as an Irishman? If not, I've heard of a "liberal" who decided Aryans are good and therefore Jews are bad because of something (?) she read on Wikipedia. Random maniacs are one thing; massive cultural ecosystems with millions of members, sophisticated messaging, and representation at all levels of political, social, and economic power - obviously a different ballpark. The fish always rots from the head down when it comes to violence and tyranny. Don't focus on individuals.

He just wanted to kill him for being a Conservative, I think - I'm English and he was quite happy to drink with me, and not in the "Englishmen are bastards but you're alright" way, either.


I'm not calling for adopting their rhetoric, but for mass recognition of the implications and extant effects of their ideology and their long-consistent and escalating practices. In fact, I'm certain that right-wing rhetorical styles are inherently ineffective on and repugnant to people on the Left.

Are you aware that Left-Wing rhetorical styles tend to be repugnant to people on the Right? There's beeen some research on this with regard to explaining climate change. People on the Left tend to focus on long-term future consequences at the expense of short-term consequences. People on the Right tend not to listen to this because the projections are usually off (because Science isn't exact at predictions) and people lose their jobs. On the other hand, people on the Left are either ignorant or dismissive of the past and don't think about how things used to be.

All you need to do to explain climate change to someone on the Right is point at a river and go "that used to be full of fish" and they get it, but people on the Left are naturally disinclined to make that argument because they don't look to the past to inform the present or the future.


It just doesn't work that way and never has. What we should be trying to persuade people of is the immediate mortal threat of global Reaction, like a Thunberg for fascism. Merely trying to confront their arguments directly is of little use as a strategy toward building power because the lies and the money behind them are unlimited and the public does not primarily respond to reasoned argument in the first place, which as a fan of Classical philosophy you should acknowledge. The Right certainly haven't built power through any form of reasoned argumentation (lol).

What CAN be done - merely winning a few elections is not adequate to the scale of the problem - I don't know. Psychology and education are a definitive barrier here, because there really is a consistent psychological profile to the sort of people who are willing to destroy for narrow gain or who are willing to be easily manipulated. You only need a third to passively watch another third eliminate the last third and whatnot.

Firstly, Miss Thurberg is a distraction being used by politicians - which is a shame. Secondly, Fascism is, by its nature, un-civil. One of the reasons Oswald Mosely never took off was that the British, being reserved and disinclined to parades, to uniforms, or shouting, found all the trappings of Fascism repugnant.

You want to defeat Fascism - rebuild civil society, instead of coming down to their level and being un-civil.


Brits are free to comment on American politics, but we prefer they come with the mindset that words and ideas mean something and can be related to facts or knowledge - rather than being mere weapons to annoy or to destroy.

Wrong thread.

[Pannonian]

Are you aware that Left-Wing rhetorical styles tend to be repugnant to people on the Right? There's beeen some research on this with regard to explaining climate change. People on the Left tend to focus on long-term future consequences at the expense of short-term consequences. People on the Right tend not to listen to this because the projections are usually off (because Science isn't exact at predictions) and people lose their jobs. On the other hand, people on the Left are either ignorant or dismissive of the past and don't think about how things used to be.

The left (well, centre) have been pointing out the detrimental effects of Brexit, with reference to expert opinions, material evidence and consistent logic. Can you point out the short term benefits of Brexit? Medium term? Long term?

In the other thread, I've posted Dominic Grieve (former Tory AG) accusing Dominic Cummings of lying about Remainer collusion with foreign governments. IA prefers to believe the Mail's story and unsourced accusation. Is this typical right wing debating methodology that the left needs to be sympathetic to? I've also posted news that the NI police don't want to be involved with the border, and Furunculus has dismissed this even though he offers no argument while it's the NI's chief constable who says this. Is this right wing debating methodology that the left has to be sympathetic to too?

My debating methodology is simple and consistent. It's the engineering method. Define the problem, then go through a series of processes examining the problem and possible solutions, with evidence-based assessment informing each stage. It's neither intrinsically left wing nor right wing, although the left tends to be more sympathetic to the approach. It's the approach that works. Am I unreasonable for preferring this method?

[Montmorency]

I tend to strive for a 1:1 ratio - that way it doesn't escalate to someone spending three hours and two cups of coffee to reply.

It depends on what remains unresolved. I'm not trying to pursue every disagreement though.


I disagree, the majority of them didn't vote in the referendum and then complained their parents were "selfish" for wanting to leave the EU. That's evidence of stupidity and ingratitude, not to mention cynicism. They complain about the environment by tweeting from the iPhones.

It's relative.


I consider political ideologies dangerous when people propose to put them into practice. Ideaological systems should be confined to universities and not let out.

You think you don't have an ideology?


Fine, you presume to debate with me about my expert subject and subjects connected to it - previous denials were merely a rhetorical device.

You're an expert on everything currently under discussion? What a polymath.


I'll require a citation if you're going to argue he "persecuted" non-Christians. Certainly, he increasingly promoted Christianity - it is why he went to war with his more religiously pluralistic brother-in-law (who may also actually have been a closet Christian).

So, what you've written isn't much contradicting my point* but to continue would demand considerable citations on both are parts, which you've intimated you hate to do with me. For my part I don't want to read whole books like this (https://www.amazon.com/Christianity-Ancient-Rome-First-Centuries/dp/0567032507/) one for the sake of argument.

To respond to the quoted, here's a Wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_pagans_in_the_late_Roman_Empire).

*Which was not that Christianity spread primarily by military conquest (neither did Islam for the most part after the first auspicious century), but of the prominence of elite institutions and individuals in its spread.


I'm going with, "I know this history better than you do."

You haven't shown it.

Why don't we agree to settle this narrowly: here's (https://muse.jhu.edu/article/216436/summary) a paper (which I haven't read yet) titled "Public Opinion and Parliament in the Abolition of the British Slave Trade." It's of average length. Can we come back tomorrow and have a verdict on whose concept of history it hews closest to? Just for the sake of these posts.


If you say so - according to Indian historiography they had multiple "Wars of Independence" that went exactly nowhere until Ghandi went on hunger strike.

Right, so what's your point?


Last week you wanted to utterly destroy the Right, yes?

What does this have to do with Indian independence?



I'm sorry, but this really is Marxist historiography. There is not "pre-Modernist Right". The concept does not exist, trying to impose it is grossly anachronistic. In the case of the Protestants it's they who are the reactionary, intolerant, regressive element.


You're still not understanding me, jeez. Pre-Modernist refers not to their direct provenance but to their worldview!!! For example, if fascists are a modernist ideology then monarchists and antisecularists (almost always) are pre-modernist, though both are contemporary forms of reactionary movement. Is this difficult to understand? Here's a helpful link (https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Neoreactionary_movement).


All measures, 100 years ago we had an unassailable advantage in science, technology, economic wealth and military power

Your idea of decline is relative power, despite the fact that in absolute terms we're more powerful and prosperous than ever before? Yikes.


OK - you don't believe in practical government - you prefer ideals - noted.

What's the meaningful distinction in relation to yourself?


I feel like you're attacking my principles, though, so those are my principles. If you struggle to accept that it's because you're trying to fit me into an American Right-Wing Christian pigeon hole.

Frankly, I think you're doing the same to Furunculus - rather than engaging us and trying to understand our positions you just filter what we say through your preconceptions as a way to understand it.

Consider - most Brits, including myself, would consider that the Average American view of healthcare is insane.

I've been trying to explain why your understanding of your own principles is wrong. I think I understand them very well and that you haven't sufficiently considered their full implications.


What part of this seemed like an opening to offer more opinions? Especially since you wrote to me first? That's the great part about etiquite (which I am breaking in a probably futile attempt to explain this) - you don't need to be sensitive, you just need to follow the rules.

Well, your rules. I can admit to doing a bad job relating to you.


Are you aware that Left-Wing rhetorical styles tend to be repugnant to people on the Right? There's beeen some research on this with regard to explaining climate change. People on the Left tend to focus on long-term future consequences at the expense of short-term consequences. People on the Right tend not to listen to this because the projections are usually off (because Science isn't exact at predictions) and people lose their jobs.

I would be more inclined to believe this if so many on the Right weren't convinced of absolute falsehoods, falsehoods that are documented to be calculated promulgations by the political strategy of industry and right-wing billionaires. In fact, in the barest terms polling consistently shows that the idea of preserving the air, water, land, and climate is quite popular among the self-identifying Right. The conspiracies are what muddle it more than anything, which ultimately makes opposition to climate action on the Right a matter of group identity - just like immigration, gender norms, and all the rest. Everything becomes subsumed to culture war. Again, keep in mind who started the fire.


On the other hand, people on the Left are either ignorant or dismissive of the past and don't think about how things used to be.

What does that mean?


All you need to do to explain climate change to someone on the Right is point at a river and go "that used to be full of fish" and they get it, but people on the Left are naturally disinclined to make that argument because they don't look to the past to inform the present or the future.

This is a little warmer, but I think the difference is between abstract and personal. Leftist rhetoric around climate change is very abstract, referring to general harms and responsibilities and vast obscure inhuman phenomena . To my recollection study shows that personal moral engagement on the importance of action/consequences of inaction is more effective than "rational argumentation" about cause and effect. This is true on the part of both right and left wing audiences.


Firstly, Miss Thurberg is a distraction being used by politicians - which is a shame.

The politicians are the distraction. Her aim is to agitate the world audience, to instill more proximate alarm.


Secondly, Fascism is, by its nature, un-civil. One of the reasons Oswald Mosely never took off was that the British, being reserved and disinclined to parades, to uniforms, or shouting, found all the trappings of Fascism repugnant.

I would think a more important factor would be the withdrawal of funding and support by Mussolini's regime in 1937/8.


You want to defeat Fascism - rebuild civil society, instead of coming down to their level and being un-civil.

See, this is just infuriating. "Rebuild civil society" is what the Left is trying to do, and is orders of magnitude more civil than the fascists, yet you would criticize both in the most blandly generic terms.


Wrong thread.

:rolleyes:

[Pannonian]

See, this is just infuriating. "Rebuild civil society" is what the Left is trying to do, and is orders of magnitude more civil than the fascists, yet you would criticize both in the most blandly generic terms.


On Brexit.

Leavers: Both sides have experts.
Reality: Overwhelming majority of experts backed Remain's arguments.

Leavers: Both sides told lies.
Reality: Overwhelming majority of lies told by Leave campaigners, especially ones with no basis and ones planned for effect.

I'm not quite sure what the rhetorical trick is called. It's related to strawman in that it's building something up to be knocked down. Except that it's building up a seemingly reasonable position by describing something in generic terms that cannot be related to anything concrete. Mother's apple pie may be the closest parallel, in that the debater seeks to occupy ground that cannot possibly be countered. Possibly a combo of mom's apple pie followed by non sequiturs, as the debater sets out an uncounterable position, followed by an ergo argument that is unrelated to the apple pie position, which cannot be countered as the debater would argue that you are arguing against mom's apple pie, which of course is utterly unreasonable, but the ergo argument is used to defend the normally indefensible.

One form of this is the above, where the debater condemns both sides, thus showing their balance and reasonableness. Except the evidence overwhelmingly favours the other side. Just start by condemning both sides, then use the tiny minority argument to extrapolate, preferably with wide angle philosophical arguments that admit no evidence-based discussion. Both left and right can use this rhetorical technique of course. But the left tends to respect science more.

I think the US and UK are both experiencing the extreme abuse of liberal democracy, admitting the worst excesses of liberalism (everyone has rights) and democracy (everyone's opinion is of equal value), without admitting the responsibilities and moderation required to make it work.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

It depends on what remains unresolved. I'm not trying to pursue every disagreement though.

Maybe you're not aware, but you consistently tend to double up on what the other person writes, which then often requires a doubling again, post expand in length geometrically - one time I needed three hours to reply to you.


It's relative.

Even relatively speaking I'm not impressed.


You think you don't have an ideology?

I have beliefs - I try to avoid allowing them to coalesce into an ideology.


You're an expert on everything currently under discussion? What a polymath.

Not what I meant, which I think you know. My field is history, especially the history of the Christian Church (which includes theology at times). My point was that you said you would not presume to debate my specialist field with me - but you do.


So, what you've written isn't much contradicting my point* but to continue would demand considerable citations on both are parts, which you've intimated you hate to do with me. For my part I don't want to read whole books like this (https://www.amazon.com/Christianity-Ancient-Rome-First-Centuries/dp/0567032507/) one for the sake of argument.

To respond to the quoted, here's a Wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_pagans_in_the_late_Roman_Empire).

*Which was not that Christianity spread primarily by military conquest (neither did Islam for the most part after the first auspicious century), but of the prominence of elite institutions and individuals in its spread.

Little to no elite sponsorship, quite the opposite, before Constantine. Rather like the spread of Protestantism pre-Luthor - for a given value of Protestantism, of course. Also, I note that wiki states that the first serious persecutions were under Constantine's son.


You haven't shown it.

Why don't we agree to settle this narrowly: here's (https://muse.jhu.edu/article/216436/summary) a paper (which I haven't read yet) titled "Public Opinion and Parliament in the Abolition of the British Slave Trade." It's of average length. Can we come back tomorrow and have a verdict on whose concept of history it hews closest to? Just for the sake of these posts.

Well, it mentions the Somerset case, at least. I haven't read the whole thing but I would say it supports my position. Abolition started in the towns with petitioning committees, then it went to Parliament.


Right, so what's your point?

Violence doesn't really work?


What does this have to do with Indian independence?

I was responding to your "No" which was apparently you responding to me saying you wanted "a war for annihilation". Nothing to do with India.


You're still not understanding me, jeez. Pre-Modernist refers not to their direct provenance but to their worldview!!! For example, if fascists are a modernist ideology then monarchists and antisecularists (almost always) are pre-modernist, though both are contemporary forms of reactionary movement. Is this difficult to understand? Here's a helpful link (https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Neoreactionary_movement).

Stop conflating history and social theory if you want me to understand you. So, let's dispense with the French Revolution - it wasn't much cop. Let's also dispense with 1517 as being of great social significance in and of itself. That whirring sound is Huss spinning in his grave, or it would be if he wasn't burned to ash.

In any case, the idea of an over-arching "Pre-Modernist Right" doesn't really wash. It would include, for example, mine liege Lord Baron Clinton and mine current Lord the Earl of Devon. The old Earl was rather anti Gay Marriage but otherwise a lovely chap. Not so sure about Baron Clinton, he let the local pub in Frithlestock close.


Your idea of decline is relative power, despite the fact that in absolute terms we're more powerful and prosperous than ever before? Yikes.

Relative power is always more important because it's what allows your nation to govern its own destiny. I;'m not even sure on the absolute-power front either. Britain used to rule about 25% of the world.


What's the meaningful distinction in relation to yourself?

It was a comment on your view - not mine. Direct Democracy doesn't work beyond a certain level - the level where everyone knows everyone else in the group.


I've been trying to explain why your understanding of your own principles is wrong. I think I understand them very well and that you haven't sufficiently considered their full implications.

Well, your rules. I can admit to doing a bad job relating to you.

Why don't you state my principles for the class, then? Start by stating one principle I hold, then explain why it's wrong.

Honestly, I find a lack of manners offensive. I think you deliberately refuse to cultivate them as a point of principle, which seems perverse - all it does is annoy people.

You are right, though, you don't understand me - and I think the reason is because you don't take me at face value. Instead of asking why I say what I say you ask what I "really mean" because you can't believe I actually mean what I say.

It's cynicism.


I would be more inclined to believe this if so many on the Right weren't convinced of absolute falsehoods, falsehoods that are documented to be calculated promulgations by the political strategy of industry and right-wing billionaires. In fact, in the barest terms polling consistently shows that the idea of preserving the air, water, land, and climate is quite popular among the self-identifying Right. The conspiracies are what muddle it more than anything, which ultimately makes opposition to climate action on the Right a matter of group identity - just like immigration, gender norms, and all the rest. Everything becomes subsumed to culture war. Again, keep in mind who started the fire.

"I don't need to engage with the issue because the other side is brainwashed".

OK - sure Monty - so if you aren't going to engage what are you going to do?


What does that mean?

You're only looking forward - you don't look back to work out how we got here - so you can't fathom how to get out.


This is a little warmer, but I think the difference is between abstract and personal. Leftist rhetoric around climate change is very abstract, referring to general harms and responsibilities and vast obscure inhuman phenomena . To my recollection study shows that personal moral engagement on the importance of action/consequences of inaction is more effective than "rational argumentation" about cause and effect. This is true on the part of both right and left wing audiences.

There was a study on this - the Left, aka progressives, look at the future and fear what will happen wherease the Right aka conservatives look to the past and ask if now is better or worse. So you need to demonstrate now is worse.


The politicians are the distraction. Her aim is to agitate the world audience, to instill more proximate alarm.

Europe and the US is already agitated - Asia and Africa want clean water and electricity first. Once they have those things they may get agitated about all the dead Dolphins.


I would think a more important factor would be the withdrawal of funding and support by Mussolini's regime in 1937/8.

Mosely was always considered a fringe nut and the British people actively opposed his Fascist thugs instead of being cowed by them.


See, this is just infuriating. "Rebuild civil society" is what the Left is trying to do, and is orders of magnitude more civil than the fascists, yet you would criticize both in the most blandly generic terms.

:rolleyes:

No, the Left is trying to "Build a New Society", it's not the same thing. Civil Society is in the Centre - you cannot rebuild it from the Left or the Right because it is the meeting of people in the middle.

[Montmorency]

Maybe you're not aware, but you consistently tend to double up on what the other person writes, which then often requires a doubling again, post expand in length geometrically - one time I needed three hours to reply to you.

It's a function of how much I have to say, stamina, mood, and other factors.


I have beliefs - I try to avoid allowing them to coalesce into an ideology.

So afraid of the term ideology that you haven't taken a step back to look at yourself.


Not what I meant, which I think you know. My field is history, especially the history of the Christian Church (which includes theology at times). My point was that you said you would not presume to debate my specialist field with me - but you do.


I largely avoided the history of the Church for that reason. If you mean history in general, well, I'll just point out that historical subjects are frequently referenced or contested on the Org.


Little to no elite sponsorship, quite the opposite, before Constantine.

I'll defer to you here.


Well, it mentions the Somerset case, at least. I haven't read the whole thing but I would say it supports my position. Abolition started in the towns with petitioning committees, then it went to Parliament.

I'll get back to you on it tomorrow.


Violence doesn't really work?

*sigh* That's not what I said.


I was responding to your "No" which was apparently you responding to me saying you wanted "a war for annihilation". Nothing to do with India.

Can you be more specific in which of my statements you are referring to and what it is you're saying about it?


Stop conflating history and social theory if you want me to understand you. So, let's dispense with the French Revolution - it wasn't much cop. Let's also dispense with 1517 as being of great social significance in and of itself. That whirring sound is Huss spinning in his grave, or it would be if he wasn't burned to ash.

If you mean that historical events have genealogies, sure.


In any case, the idea of an over-arching "Pre-Modernist Right" doesn't really wash. It would include, for example, mine liege Lord Baron Clinton and mine current Lord the Earl of Devon. The old Earl was rather anti Gay Marriage but otherwise a lovely chap. Not so sure about Baron Clinton, he let the local pub in Frithlestock close.

Does he want to subordinate the popular consciousness to "natural" hierarchies? Does your lord want to expand his power? Does he want to reorganize society in a way reminiscent of 17th-century English social relations? You understand very well what I've been talking about, come off it.


It was a comment on your view - not mine. Direct Democracy doesn't work beyond a certain level - the level where everyone knows everyone else in the group.

I literally told you I wasn't referring to direct democracy, although there should surely be more direct democracy in day-to-day life.


Why don't you state my principles for the class, then? Start by stating one principle I hold, then explain why it's wrong.

A belief in centrism, for one.


Honestly, I find a lack of manners offensive. I think you deliberately refuse to cultivate them as a point of principle, which seems perverse - all it does is annoy people.

I don't perceive myself as being less mannerly than yourself in these conversations. I do have a trait of pushing people past the point of discomfort. But this is text, online - if you're aggravated, step back and relax.


You are right, though, you don't understand me - and I think the reason is because you don't take me at face value. Instead of asking why I say what I say you ask what I "really mean" because you can't believe I actually mean what I say.

It's cynicism.

Again, you're just wrong. I don't ask you what you really mean, I tried to show you what you're saying does mean beyond what you're willing to reflect on. How many times do need to say this before you'll acknowledge it?


"I don't need to engage with the issue because the other side is brainwashed".

OK - sure Monty - so if you aren't going to engage what are you going to do?

I didn't say that. Engage with the words I typed?


You're only looking forward - you don't look back to work out how we got here - so you can't fathom how to get out.

Er, I definitely am considering the past, which is why I've been highlighting modern intellectual and political history. What do you mean by "get out" yourself?


There was a study on this - the Left, aka progressives, look at the future and fear what will happen wherease the Right aka conservatives look to the past and ask if now is better or worse. So you need to demonstrate now is worse.

I don't think you can gain a thorough understanding of the world through this lens. Just link the paper so I can compare.


Europe and the US is already agitated - Asia and Africa want clean water and electricity first. Once they have those things they may get agitated about all the dead Dolphins.

Ah, so you haven't heard a single thing Thunberg said. No, Europe and the US are not agitated.


Mosely was always considered a fringe nut and the British people actively opposed his Fascist thugs instead of being cowed by them.

That's true everywhere (namely that fascists start out as fringe thugs and some elements of the population actively oppose them).


No, the Left is trying to "Build a New Society"

Well, some of us are, but as I've impressed on you the current society won't survive in its current form regardless.


Civil Society is in the Centre - you cannot rebuild it from the Left or the Right because it is the meeting of people in the middle

There is no such thing as a "centre" except as an ideological construction.


EDIT: You know, this is tiresome. If we're going to talk about something let's have it be one narrow subject and develop that. Deal?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

It's a function of how much I have to say, stamina, mood, and other factors.

Three hours and two cups of coffee - that's all I'm saying. Also, I think it's more a function of you developing new tangents.


So afraid of the term ideology that you haven't taken a step back to look at yourself.

In order to be afraid you have to have something to be afraid for - I have little left, except my family. You say I seem inconsistent, it's a common charge you lay against me, but you also say I have an ideology - even though I don't realise it.


I largely avoided the history of the Church for that reason. If you mean history in general, well, I'll just point out that historical subjects are frequently referenced or contested on the Org.

I have no objection to you debating me, I object to your gesture of false deference. Incidentally - this is a great example of you looking for subtext where there is none.


I'll defer to you here.

Why thank you - conversely Constantine and his mother more than made up for it after his conversion.


I'll get back to you on it tomorrow.

OK.


*sigh* That's not what I said.

You specifically said the threat of violence was the reason Indian Independence got off the ground - because the Powers that Be preferred to deal with the less violent elements. I'm arguing the opposite - until the non-violent elements emerged violence was going nowhere fast.


Can you be more specific in which of my statements you are referring to and what it is you're saying about it?

Well, you were the one who responded "No". I suggest you try tracing the thread of the conversation back. You'll appreciate why I dislike overly long posts.


If you mean that historical events have genealogies, sure.

To suggest history is one thing after another is banal. My point is that there was no Right and no Left before those concepts were given names - principally through the Whigs and Tories in England. The fact that both Whigs and Tories would be considered "Right Wing" today is significant.

The point is that there has been no "grand struggle" between the Right and the Left - there have been a series of partially related struggles throughout history that are often only tangentially connected. The English Lollard in the 14th Century has nothing in common with the American Communist in the 20th except persecution, for example.


Does he want to subordinate the popular consciousness to "natural" hierarchies? Does your lord want to expand his power? Does he want to reorganize society in a way reminiscent of 17th-century English social relations? You understand very well what I've been talking about, come off it.

Like most English aristocracy they believe in Parliamentary democracy, last I checked. Rather fond of military service, and mostly quiet acts of charity, no longer try to get their sons elected to the House of Commons. In short, nothing like the American "Upper Class" you are reacting against.


I literally told you I wasn't referring to direct democracy, although there should surely be more direct democracy in day-to-day life.

You want "a more direct democracy" though, I think - what happens when you get it and it fails?


A belief in centrism, for one.

Only by default of a disdain for the excesses of the Right and Left.


I don't perceive myself as being less mannerly than yourself in these conversations. I do have a trait of pushing people past the point of discomfort. But this is text, online - if you're aggravated, step back and relax.

Why make people deliberately uncomfortable unless you want to aggravate them? It's a pointless exercise, especially in the Backroom.


Again, you're just wrong. I don't ask you what you really mean, I tried to show you what you're saying does mean beyond what you're willing to reflect on. How many times do need to say this before you'll acknowledge it?

Right, you're looking for the subtext - if I deny there is one you insist there is - which is what you are doing now. In any case, you've openly accused me and Furunculus of intellectual dishonesty in the last month. It took pages to hammer through basic points to you in that thread on gender.

Again - pigeon-holing me into the "Christian therefore homo/trans-phobic" box.


I didn't say that. Engage with the words I typed?

You are the only one allowed to see subtext, then? It's a bloody tiresome effort to get you to engage with the words I type, it's also a monstrous effort to wade through your jargon, sometimes. My least favourite word you use is "overdetermined".

Not a thing.


Er, I definitely am considering the past, which is why I've been highlighting modern intellectual and political history. What do you mean by "get out" yourself?

I don't think you can gain a thorough understanding of the world through this lens. Just link the paper so I can compare.

https://medium.com/s/story/how-to-talk-to-us-conservatives-about-global-warming-1a484aaf6227

Can't find the original piece now, we discussed it a couple of years ago as I recall.


Ah, so you haven't heard a single thing Thunberg said. No, Europe and the US are not agitated.

So because she says they aren't that means they aren't?

She accuses world-leaders of stealing her future but the reality is that she was born into a world blighted by human over-population. People are attracted to her because she's young, idealistic, innocent and angry - an anger born of hope. She's basically Joan of Arc for the Climate Change movement. None of which changes the simple fact that even if we stop climate change dead tomorrow the planet will continue to be ravaged by humans at an unprecedented rate.

In Europe and the US a lot of people spend a lot of time worrying about this, but there's very little more that can really be done unless people accept a radical drop in quality of life of not having children.


That's true everywhere (namely that fascists start out as fringe thugs and some elements of the population actively oppose them).

Both the Italians and Germans rather liked political uniforms and the other trappings of Fascism - even if they didn't like the political content.


Well, some of us are, but as I've impressed on you the current society won't survive in its current form regardless.

I think this is a deterministic and therefore fallacious argument - the current society won't survive so we need to tear it down.

Rome is always... oh never mind.


There is no such thing as a "centre" except as an ideological construction.

Say's the man committed to the Hard Left.


EDIT: You know, this is tiresome. If we're going to talk about something let's have it be one narrow subject and develop that. Deal?

It's been tiresome for weeks.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Apparently, Johnson now wants to replace the Supreme Court that opposed him with his appointees, while the Mail (notoriously a backer of the far right in the 1930s) practically accuses his opponents of treason.

Threatening the opposition with violence, getting control of the judiciary, accusing the opposition of treason. Where is the basis for civil discourse?

FDR tried to pack our court in the '30s. Even his political popularity and jaunty style flopped on that one. I sincerely doubt that the UK is less resilient on such things. Civil discourse tends to get lost in the shuffle during polarized political eras -- and you lot certainly have that right now.

I've had the pleasure for most of my adult life -- which I attribute to the media wigging out over Reagan (way more than justified, they treated him like a Nixon when he was not). This, coupled with the 'rebirth' of talk radio as the tool of right wing bloviators then begat an audience that increasingly bought in to the "victory" model over the "compromise" model in US politics. It's getting to be as bad as the old Roman racing team crap.

[Greyblades]

Interesting, I've heard a similar tale from right wingers of the democrats adopting a "victory over comprimise" doctrine.

Seems there is a game of "you started it" going on. I expect that such will emerge between leave and remain in a few years/decades, right now people still have a clear memory of its beginning.

[Pannonian]

FDR tried to pack our court in the '30s. Even his political popularity and jaunty style flopped on that one. I sincerely doubt that the UK is less resilient on such things. Civil discourse tends to get lost in the shuffle during polarized political eras -- and you lot certainly have that right now.

I've had the pleasure for most of my adult life -- which I attribute to the media wigging out over Reagan (way more than justified, they treated him like a Nixon when he was not). This, coupled with the 'rebirth' of talk radio as the tool of right wing bloviators then begat an audience that increasingly bought in to the "victory" model over the "compromise" model in US politics. It's getting to be as bad as the old Roman racing team crap.

The US system was designed to have clear checks and balances and an expectation that the politicians will be the worst of all men, and gridlock in the two Houses being a good thing. The UK system is founded on the expectation that custom and a recognition of the necessity of a Parliamentary majority will be rules enough, that this allows the executive a great deal of leeway. When this foundation is abused to heck like it is by Brexiteers, then a lot of the underlying assumptions no longer work, and every step towards authoritarianism has greater implications than it would in a US system. There were warnings when May wanted to expand the scope of the executive's powers, with the question: would you want Corbyn to have these powers too?

Right now, the systemic abuse is still predominantly from the Leave side, although we're seeing it from the far left too. There is still a fair chunk of the centre, which Remain still is, that still observes the old ways. There is still scope for stopping the authoritarians. But you can see from the arguments offered by Brexiteers here that authoritarianism is becoming increasingly acceptable to them to give them their Brexit, with the argument that the old norms should be abandoned if it denies them what they want.

[Pannonian]

The Times now reporting via cabinet sources that Johnson is willing to squat in 10 Downing Street even if Parliament agrees a replacement government, that no manner of hints will be taken even from the head of state, that he will only be removed physically with an arrest warrant, such is his determination to drive through Brexit. And you know what? The Brexiteers on here would still take his side.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The Times now reporting via cabinet sources that Johnson is willing to squat in 10 Downing Street even if Parliament agrees a replacement government, that no manner of hints will be taken even from the head of state, that he will only be removed physically with an arrest warrant, such is his determination to drive through Brexit. And you know what? The Brexiteers on here would still take his side.

We would not, I certainly would not.

In any case, for this to be an eventuality Jeremy Corbyn would first need to get out of the way and allow Ken Clarke to become Prime Minister. As things stand he won't, which means they'll force Boris Johnson to apply for an extension himself. I f that goes through Johnson's sins will be wiped away in the eyes of voters and he will win the ensuing election - unless Corbyn refuses to back one again.

In that case Boris Johnson will wipe Labour out.

The problem with having two so visible and idiosyncratic Leaders is that their parties become subsumed to the Leader's agenda in the public consciousness.

[Pannonian]

We would not, I certainly would not.

In any case, for this to be an eventuality Jeremy Corbyn would first need to get out of the way and allow Ken Clarke to become Prime Minister. As things stand he won't, which means they'll force Boris Johnson to apply for an extension himself. I f that goes through Johnson's sins will be wiped away in the eyes of voters and he will win the ensuing election - unless Corbyn refuses to back one again.

In that case Boris Johnson will wipe Labour out.

The problem with having two so visible and idiosyncratic Leaders is that their parties become subsumed to the Leader's agenda in the public consciousness.

You reckon so? Cox (the government's chief lawyer, for our US posters) is threatening to resign if Johnson does not send the letter as instructed, so he obviously thinks this is a realistic scenario. And this is a man who has already been willing to bend constitutional law for this government.

Whatever the details of the machinations, such as Cummings imagines himself to be a genius in, and Corbyn's lot absolutely glory in, I wish UK politics would return to a time when discussion was merely about how much one side or the other would move in a certain direction, with maybe a bit of give and take here and there. The debates about Brexit have convinced me that absolute arguments about philosophical points ruin the country. Any discussion of government should be grounded in statistical measures that can be cross referenced. If a winning argument does not have these metrics to measure against, it does not confer any kind of mandate.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

You reckon so? Cox (the government's chief lawyer, for our US posters) is threatening to resign if Johnson does not send the letter as instructed, so he obviously thinks this is a realistic scenario. And this is a man who has already been willing to bend constitutional law for this government.

Whatever the details of the machinations, such as Cummings imagines himself to be a genius in, and Corbyn's lot absolutely glory in, I wish UK politics would return to a time when discussion was merely about how much one side or the other would move in a certain direction, with maybe a bit of give and take here and there. The debates about Brexit have convinced me that absolute arguments about philosophical points ruin the country. Any discussion of government should be grounded in statistical measures that can be cross referenced. If a winning argument does not have these metrics to measure against, it does not confer any kind of mandate.

Geoffrey's worried?

I didn't know that, now I'm worried.

[Montmorency]

FDR tried to pack our court in the '30s. Even his political popularity and jaunty style flopped on that one. I sincerely doubt that the UK is less resilient on such things. Civil discourse tends to get lost in the shuffle during polarized political eras -- and you lot certainly have that right now.

I've had the pleasure for most of my adult life -- which I attribute to the media wigging out over Reagan (way more than justified, they treated him like a Nixon when he was not). This, coupled with the 'rebirth' of talk radio as the tool of right wing bloviators then begat an audience that increasingly bought in to the "victory" model over the "compromise" model in US politics. It's getting to be as bad as the old Roman racing team crap.

I can't speak to what news media were like before the millennium, but aside from Vietnam Reagan was much worse than Nixon! Any media "wigging out" over a Republican president can only give rise to the right-wing ecosystem on the premise that they want "the whole hog." But in fact the far right has been strategizing media contestation since before Nixon, even since FDR (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/01/the-conservative-war-on-liberal-media-has-a-long-history/283149/). Like I'm saying, it's a total war in all domains of human epistemology (and physically too).

The history of FDR's court packing threat is pretty interesting. I had the pleasure of reading this paper (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/psq.12513) just published in January on public perceptions of court packing at the time, and the data created at the dawn of public polling. Some highlights:


Despite Roosevelt’s landslide win, the public held ambivalent attitudes concerning the Supreme Court. In November 1936, most Americans were dissatisfied with the Court’s decisions in New Deal cases. As displayed on the left side of Table 1, nearly 60% of respondents believed “the Supreme Court should be more liberal in reviewing New Deal measures.”7 Respondents who voted for FDR were even more frustrated with the Court (81.0%), yet even one in four Alf Landon voters shared these sentiments. On the other hand, many respondents expressed concern for the separation of powers, consistent with the ALL’s defense of the Supreme Court. Only 40.4% supported “limiting the power of the Supreme Court to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional,” and Roosevelt voters were not overwhelmingly in favor of this idea either (57.8%).

The March 3–8, 1937, poll includes questions measuring attitudes on the compet-ing methods of resolving the New Deal constitutional conflict. The two dependent vari-ables are “Are you in favor of President Roosevelt’s proposal regarding the Supreme Court?” and “Would you favor an amendment to the Constitution giving Congress greater power to regulate industry and agriculture?”8 Overall, 49.0% of respondents fa-vored Court packing, and 60.1% supported a constitutional amendment.9

The survey asked for political identification from the options Democrat, Republican, and socialist (and Independent as a write-in). Race, sex, region, occupation, and income were also recorded. All demographics of political affiliation and income group preferred a constitutional amendment to court packing - as did even those who believed the Constitution was too difficult to amend - though the confidence intervals for Democrats and those on government relief are large enough that you could call it roughly equal support among those groups for our level of rigor. While Republicans naturally hated the idea of court packing, they approved of a constitutional amendment about on par with the approval other political affiliations and income groups had for court packing. However, pluralities of Democrats at ~40% probability favored both options, while a similar plurality among Republicans rejected both. Very small minorities favored court packing but not an amendment (FDR's position). Roughly similar proportions across demographics preferred only a constitutional amendment (Herbert Hoover's position) at >25%, so in other words the most significant differentiating variables between demographics were support for both proposals and support for only court packing (e.g. 16.5% probability among Democrats).

A followup poll indicated that a similarly-strong majority of Americans as favored an amendment wished FDR had made the court an explicit issue in his 1936 campaign, including a majority of Democrats. Asked about who they would have voted in 1936 in light of the court packing agenda, there is a small net swing in favor of Landon that if translated to vote shares would have left FDR beating Landon by only +15 rather than +24.

The author concludes the data suggest that concerns about procedural legitimacy motivated many non-Republicans, who all tended to support a constitutional amendment at similar probabilities of 60+%.

Of course, times are different now, the country is much more diverse, and the Republicans are packing courts on the federal and state level anyway to much approbation. It becomes a matter of relentless signalling from the Dem Party to agitate enough of the electorate into influencing Democratic congresspersons to consent to some scheme - because it needs to happen as the contingency on which all else pends.


The US system was designed to have clear checks and balances and an expectation that the politicians will be the worst of all men, and gridlock in the two Houses being a good thing. The UK system is founded on the expectation that custom and a recognition of the necessity of a Parliamentary majority will be rules enough, that this allows the executive a great deal of leeway. When this foundation is abused to heck like it is by Brexiteers, then a lot of the underlying assumptions no longer work, and every step towards authoritarianism has greater implications than it would in a US system. There were warnings when May wanted to expand the scope of the executive's powers, with the question: would you want Corbyn to have these powers too?

Right now, the systemic abuse is still predominantly from the Leave side, although we're seeing it from the far left too. There is still a fair chunk of the centre, which Remain still is, that still observes the old ways. There is still scope for stopping the authoritarians. But you can see from the arguments offered by Brexiteers here that authoritarianism is becoming increasingly acceptable to them to give them their Brexit, with the argument that the old norms should be abandoned if it denies them what they want.

That's not quite right. The Founders expected (or at least hoped) elected officials to be of the finest citizens, and gridlock in the legislature was NOT their design or desire, which tended toward majoritarian. Indeed, they assigned Congress the most power of all the branches of government and specified a supermajority requirement only in five cases, all applying in the Senate: ratification of treaties; removal following impeachment; override of executive veto; ratification of constitutional amendment; ___?.


@PVC

Here's my reading of the slavery paper:

*The national abolitionist movement properly began in 1787. The paper reviews its course but doesn't try to explain why it should have been this year in particular.
*The majority of the population already disagreed with slavery and either actively wanted it gone or would be accepting of abolition; they just needed a spark in the form of a mass movement
*As always, popular opinion is one thing but getting two houses of the legislature to ratify it is another; the House of Lords stymied serious abolition bills out of the Commons multiple times, and the slavery interest lobby had a similar effect in the Commons
*The story of the success of the British abolition movement is one of skillful and dedicated curation, organization, and mobilization of what was perennially a majoritarian opinion on the immorality of slavery; once the narrative became news, mass sentiment could become coordinated mass action, potentially forcing the hand of recalcitrant lawmakers
*The paper has only a handful of examples that emphasize my contention about the vehement character of the public discourse on slavery, but there is minimal evidence present that "compassionate argument" (as compared to, say, rabble-rousing and demagoguery) proved a significant factor in the real-life political process culminating in total abolition of the British slave trade

N.b. Below I'll generally be referring to "anti-slavery" and "abolition", but an important distinction is that many mainstream abolitionists preferred to focus on abolishing the slave trade rather than slavery comprehensively. Slave ownership and commerce was not fully outlawed in Britain and the empire until 1833, but I'm not interested in reading another paper just for that.


Eighteenth-century culture was therefore saturated with casual references to the violence done to social norms by the slave trade.


The security of the system was often revealed in the instances of its casual
condemnation. Just ten years before the emergence of abolitionism the author of The Present State of the
West Inddies (1778), p. 11, noted, In passing, ‘this [slave] trade, to the disgrace of the age, has so deeply taken
root, it is become so necessary to the present state of affairs, and our wants have justified it in a manner so
absolute that it is almost common-place to cry out the barbarity and cruelty of it’.

The following year a quaker abolitionist committee obtained an audience with
the new ministry, led by the young William Pitt. Once again there was praise for the
principle, but the committee were told that ‘the time was not yet come to bring the
affair to maturity’.’ [...] They were not encouraged by the parliamentary response. By
1785 their distribution of 11,000 copies of Benezet’s principal pamphlet to all M.P.s,
justices of the Peace and clergy had resulted in ‘an approbation of our benevolence . . .
but little prospect of success’.’

Drescher, Capitalism and Antislavery, pp. 63, 206 n. 42. As late as 1785 an item in the London Public
Advertirer (21 Jan. 1785), warned that to expect any relief from parliament was to expect the impossible ’till
Negroes, by having boroughs for their property and loans at their disposal, shall have a party in the House
of Commons at their command’.


Naturally spurs adjacent hope for all manner of radical reforms to move into the realm of possibility in the near future.

Anyway, the principle of disgust toward slavery among the bourgeoisie and intelligentsia was well-entrenched, but diffident and sporadic in the face of conservative economic defenses and the absence of any mass movement contravening the influence of slaveholders and slave-dependent industries. Abolition was a niche issue that received little press. Anti-slavery activists were largely ignorant and independent of one another until organizations began coalescing in the late 1980s. (Lotta Quakers unsurprisingly.) The summer of 1987 was when everything changed, because the abolitionist movement coalesced around the London Committee and convinced MP William Wilberforce to take up the cause; he was friends with legendary PM William Pitt the Younger, who also got on board the bandwagon and launched an inquiry into slavery in early 1788 (although "[h]e ‘studiously avoided’ revealing his own views and the opposition chose to remain silent.’").




Contrary to one important historiographical tradition, British abolitionism did not
emerge at a moment of chastened anxiety or national humiliation arising from the
loss of the North American colonies. It was not an attempt to resuscitate Britain's
threatened image as the torchbearer of liberty in comparison with the new American
rep~blic.'~ Nor was it a direct response to heightened internal class conflict or to the
devaluation of the British slave system in relation to the empire or the e~onomy.'~
To the extent that moral self-scrutiny became an aspect of the post-war imperial
discourse, it did so in the context of revived national self-confidence. By almost
every empirical measure popular abolitionism emerged at one of the most benign
conjunctures of British history in the century between the Seven Years' War and
the American Civil War. A survey of London's newspapers in 1786-7 evidences a
nation revelling in its prosperity, security and power. From Cornwall to Aberdeen
came reports that indicated the most abundant harvest in a decade, and, in some
places, in living memory. Industry was thriving and the cotton industry in particular
was expanding at an unprecedented rate. Labour disputes had diminished in the coal
mines and artisan friendly societies were congratulated on their performance. Pitt
was given full credit for the administration's successful financial planning and for the
anticipation of a budgetary surplus."
Prospects beyond the seas seemed equally bright. British goods were winning out
everywhere. The new French treaty was throwing open a new market for British
manufactures. British trade dominated entrepots from Canton to America. The West
Indies was sending a fine crop of sugar. The French islands were producing cotton
wool for English industry and expanding British West Indian output promised future
imperial self-sufficiency.
What the press found most exhilarating was Britain's transformed international
position. Plagued by aristocratic revolt and popular rioting, France was verging on
bankruptcy and military impotence. The Netherlands was descending into revolution.
The Dutch East and West Indian Companies were both foundering. Britons were
most fascinated by unfolding developments in the new American republic. In 1786
and 1787 newspapers offered an unending flow of bad news from New England
to Georgia: rebellion in Massachusetts; inflation in Rhode Island; stagnation in
Philadelphia; ferment in New York; problems in Georgia and Carolina. The American
confederation itself seemed to be disintegrating.


Whatever may have contributed to transforming abolitionism from a popular
sentiment to a political movement in 1787, it was not any widespread notion that the
British needed to snatch the role of liberty’s champion back from the United States.
Popular abolitionism proceeded from a different premise: how could the world’s most
secure, free, religous, just, prosperous and moral nation allow itself to remain the
premier perpetrator of the world’s most deadly, brutal, unjust and immoral offences
to humanity? How could its people, once fully informed of its inhumanity, hope to
continue to be blessed with peace, prosperity and power?

Manchester led the way in the 1787-8 mass campaigning of the abolitionist movement. Despite being a proto-industrial cotton town, the majority of it's adult males (the working class) signed a petition for abolition. Liverpool as a city was the biggest resister, whose mercantilist petition uncivilly accused abolitionists of inciting rebellion.


Along with Birmingham’s later petition,
Manchester was given pride of place in affirming that the broadly popular and
economically informed portion of the nation had opted for abolition. Its petition did
not concern itself with the policy or economic aspects of the abolitionist case, setting
a general pattern that was to be followed throughout the next 50 years. Petitioners
focused first and foremost on the need for political action against an offence to
humanity, justice and national honour. Subsequent petitions against the trade also
stressed moral grounds for reform under the same triad of ‘humanity, religion and
justice.’ Less than five per cent of those to come added any promise of economic
advantage. [...] Nevertheless, a systematic study of parliamentary
rhetoric in the major debates until 1807 indicates that, by ratios of two and three
to one, abolitionists consistently emphasized moral over other reasons for action.
Their opponents conversely emphasized economic and security reasons, by the same
ratios. This indicates that the moral versus economic dichotomy inherited from the
pre-political period remained remarkably stable throughout the two decades before
abolition was enacted

Makes me itch to do a socialism.

Petitions were central to the expansion of the abolition campaign, as were the newspapers in publicizing them. The majority of petitions to Parliament in 1787-8 were abolitionist ones. At least 60,000 signatories in a country of (from a brief Wiki skim) between 6 (~1740) and 10 million (~1800).


The first campaign caught allies of the slave interest by surprise. They appeared to
be overwhelmed by the speed and breadth of the national mobilization. The slave
interest was as dismayed by the adhesion of prelates, universities and other corporate
communities as by the large popular base.’ [...] Disoriented opponents searched for historical perspective.
One writer was reminded ominously of 1772, the year of the Somerset case in England and of Virginia's appeal
for the ending of the slave trade to the colony. More general were the terms thereafter
applied to popular supporters of abolitionism by distressed defenders of the trade:
‘general clamour’, ‘popular emotion’, ‘phrenzy’, ‘fanaticism’, etc. All these terms
implicitly recognized that the appeal for action was both widely and emotionally
shared. Published appeals against the new movement almost always acknowledged
that their own ‘side has scarce found a single defender’.’’

From the outset the slave interest made no attempt to initiate a broad counterpetition drive
or to reach beyond their traditional interest network. Over the next
two decades the slave interest would have ample opportunities to claim that the
intensity of public feeling had cooled. They would never assert that the public had
repudiated its origmal judgment. Anti-abolitionists therefore focused their collective
political energies on pamphleteering, parliamentary lobbying and private appeals to
sympathetic governmental officials

In May 1788 the issue of abolition was formally introduced into the house of
commons as part of an implicit dialogue between parliament and people. Standing in
for the ill Wilberforce, the prime minister framed his motion as a necessary response
to ‘the great number and variety of petitions’ that bespoke an engaged public. Pitt
was powerfully seconded by other luminaries in the House. Charles James Fox and
Edmund Burke drew attention to the table of the House, loaded with petitions. Fox
noted that he would have moved for consideration of abolition himself in the absence
of Wilberforce’s commitment. Public opinion, in its activist sense, had ensured
parliamentary consideration on both sides of the House.

Legislative efforts to regulate the Middle Passage arising from the above struggled because the opposition could now sink its teeth into specific proposals, and the House of Lords was opposed by its nature (and diluted the substance by a large measure). William Pitt was opposed in supporting this "Dolben Bill" by his cabinet, and had to threaten to resign to see it through the Commons.


Further removed from the pressures of public
opinion, the peers saw no reason to put a hitherto unchallenged component of
the nation’s commercial and naval supremacy at risk. [...]
The fate of the Dolben Bill foreshadowed the parliamentary struggle to come.
During the next 18 years the abolition of the British slave trade would be moved 12
more times in parliament, but always as an open question not a government measure.
Twice before 1807 abolition bills would succeed in the Commons only to be stymied
in the upper house. Before 1806 partial bills for eliminating British transportation of
slaves to foreign colonies, or from certain parts of the African coast would suffer a
similar fate in the Lords. Stephen Fuller, the colonial agent for Jamaica, had anticipated
the situation: ‘The stream of popularity runs against us’, he wrote as early as January
1788, ‘but I trust nevertheless that common-sense is with us, and that wicked as we
are when compared with the abolishers, the wisdom and policy of this country will
protect US.'^'' ‘Common sense’ was institutionalized in the Lords. Until 1806 the peers
would usually invoke their prerogative of independent examination to prevent the
abolition bills passed by the Commons from moving on to a definitive vote. Almost
20 years later abolitionists would have to develop a two-session, two-house, strategy
to achieve total victory.

After 1788, "the provincial committee system remained ‘the heart of organized anti-slavery’" and they turned to propagandizing and [I]organizing (important term there) the public and laying groundwork for popular mobilization (which is different than organization) by bringing commoner witnesses to Parliament in the form of sailors and secondhand slave accounts (Negroes were not permitted to testify before the select committee). Women and blacks also began participating visibly in the movement (e.g. Phyllis Wheatley and Olaudah Equiano).


An observer wrote that the ‘whole committee was in a laugh’,
and Wilberforce was asked, ‘Will you bring your ship-keepers, ship-sweepers, and
deck cleaners in competition with our admirals and men of honor?’32

Parliament stonewalled abolition until Wilberforce introduced a motion in April 1791.


At the end of the debate a backbencher concisely
summed up the situation: ‘The leaders, it was true were for the abolition; but the
minor orators, the pygmies, would, he trusted, carry this day the question against
them. The property of the West Indians was at stake.’ Abolition was defeated by a
vote of 163 to 88. Whatever the merits of their argument, Roger Anstey concluded,
the abolitionists lost resoundingly

The London Committee resolved to channel future-Bernie Sanders by mobilizing the latent popular sentiment against Parliament, reprioritizing moral over economic facts. Local initiatives were replaced with centralized command and control.


The agents’ function was to ‘excite the flame’, but
delay its flaring forth until the mass of petitions could simultaneously converge on
parliament.4”

The results far exceeded the committee’s expectations. Even two decades later
Clarkson’s sober History allowed itself a moment of awe:
Of the enthusiasm of the nation at this time none can form an opinion but they
who witnessed it. There never was perhaps a season when so much virtuous feeling
pervaded all ranks . . , The current ran with such strength and rapidity that it was
impossible to stem it . . . [No petitions] were ever more numerous, as far as we
have any record of such transactions . . . The account stood thus. For regulation
there was one; against all abolition there were four; and for the total abolition of
the trade five hundred and nineteen.4’

Seriously, take a break to watch any Sanders campaign ad.


Upwards of 400,000 names flowed into London just in time for the opening of
Wilberforce’s second motion. These were probably the largest numbers of both
petitions and signatures ever simultaneously reaching parliament on a single subject.
In some parts of the country between a quarter and a third of the adult male population
petitioned for abolition, with Manchester’s proportion reaching nearly 50 per cent.4




Polemics could, of course, be matched by opposition propaganda. Signatures could not.
[...]
The popular response to the great campaign of 1791-2 indicates that the abolitionists
requested and received almost unlimited support within the contemporary
boundaries of legitimate signers. The organizers were clearly less worried about too
little popular enthusiasm for abolition than too much.

Mainstream abolitionists became concerned with becoming associated with fellow travelers who wanted full emancipation or equality between races. Many abolitionists claimed they wanted full abolition, but that to propound more than the abolition of the slave trade itself was too extreme for public consumption (lolcentrists). The French Revolution entering its maximalist stage (enjoy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHVo0hJhnK4)) did not calm any nerves.


Dickson was warned to steer the
potential petition committees away from any discussion of policy except the most
general idea, that ‘what is unjust must be impolitick’

"There are many paths to Medicare for All" - lolcentrists.

Another thing alarming the leadership was a boycott campaign against slave-grown sugar appealing to the people's power of the purse. (As noted above, women could not sign petitions.)


Special appeals were directed towards women, as managers of the household budget.
They stressed women’s sensitivity to family destruction and offered them a means of
compensating for their exclusion from the petition campaign. Children too were also
urged, and volunteered, to become part of this national consumer mobilization.


Although Clarkson privately favoured the anti-saccharite agitation in hopes of
increasing the turnout for petitions, Wilberforce feared abstention as likely to alienate
moderates.46

Hmm... lolcentrists.


Some abstentionist polemics
explicitly identified the British legislature, as constituted, as an institution that was
unlikely to abolish the slave trade. Since parliament had failed to heed the express will
of the people, the people had to ‘manifest to Europe and the World that public spirit,
that virtuous abhorrence of SLAVERY, to which a British SENATE is unable - or
unwilling to aspire’.~’
The language of this radical voice of abolition resonated with other voices calling
for fundamental political reform in Britain. In the winter of 1792 the anti-saccharite
movement appeared to be but one more symptom of many radical challenges
sweeping across the Atlantic world. [...] The counter-abolitionist strategy broadened to conflate abolitionism not only
with slave emancipation, but with every potential threat to public order, foreign and domestic.

You mean, "socialism!!1"
Ahem - lolconservatives


The unprecedented pile of sheets on the table in 1792 emboldened some abolitionist
M.P.s to welcome the charge that schoolboys and people of the lowest status had
signed on: ‘What did this prove but that individuals of all sorts, conditions and ages,
young and old, master and scholar, high and low, rich and poor, the risen and the
rising generation, had unanimously set every nerve on stretch for the overthrow of
the . . . abominable and the indefensible?

Hear hear.


The house of commons voted for gradual abolition by a
vote of 230 to 85, and for an immediate end to the British trade to foreign colonies.
By a far smaller margin, the Commons voted to set the date of total abolition at 1796.

The House of Lords kills it. It's pretty clear by now that preserving slavery, or at least the trade in slaves, was an issue of popular resonance of a kind with tax cuts for the rich today. Are upper chambers inevitably the reactionary enemies of the people?

So, between 1792 and 1806 there are no more great episodes of public agitation against slavery. Motions for abolition were submitted, and failed, about a dozen times. I assume, and the author concurs, the wars of the coalitions and the general state crackdown on radicalism and reformism in Britain may have had something to do with it. Mass petitioning as a form of public engagement seems to have died during this era, but beneath the surface British national homogenization in the face of the Napoleonic threat propagandized liberty and freedom in a way that associated it naturally with the status of black slaves. The fact that France had reinstituted colonial slavery under the Consulate helped this along. "Britons never never never shall be slaves" and whatnot. Also, white Britons were growing less freaked out by the legacy of the Haitian revolt and were intrigued by the trade opportunities.

Pitt returned for his last hurrah as PM. Wilberforce introduced yet another abolition motion in mid-1804. It passed. The House of Lords killed it again. Wilberforce lost majority support for his bill in the Commons.


As Anstey concluded, the victory of 1804 had been deceptive. ‘Enemies had only to exert
themselves more, and friends less, and the day was lost.’5

Ain't that the truth, brother.


Regrouping after the
unexpected setback, the London committee decided that renewed popular pressure
was essential to break the stalemate. For the first time since 1792 Clarkson was
dispatched on another tour to reconnect with the local communities. He reported
on the relative ignorance of the younger abolitionists but was more struck by a
widespread welcome that could be turned into activism. The energy of the new
generation could furnish the movement ‘with endless sources of rallying’.


As early as 1805 the slave interest protested that the ‘violent’ propaganda being worked up

Well, if you say so. :eyebrows:


The West India Committee had to revive its dormant propaganda committee.

Who says the British weren't ahead of their time?

Now in 1806, the moderates were prominent in the movement once more and proposed only to abolish the British trade to "foreign and conquered colonies". But in fact it was a Trojan Horse for a slippery slope to total abolition of the British slave trade. Robert Peel (the father of the guy you're thinking of) was a prominent opponent; the bill nevertheless passed on wartime economic arguments.


With the passage of the Foreign Slave Trade Bill in May 1806, attention turned to
the question of total abolition. Grenville and the abolitionists were aware that they
had passed the bill on the grounds that it would help the British colonies keep a
wartime edge over their competitors. Final abolition would have to contradict that
rationale and return to the original abolitionist grounds of ‘justice and humanity’.~’
James Stephen urged Grenville to delay the final motion until after the autumn
general election, so that M.P.s might be ‘instructed by luge bodies of their constituents
to vote for an abolition of the slave trade’.

Apparently this worked and - Christ, why does all this feel so modern? Wilberforce, who it should be noted had been an Independent for 20 years by now, got to watch as the 1806 election obliterated 40 years of Tory dominance in Parliament in a landslide (though Cons would once again maintain large majorities from 1812-1831, which is probably very important for British history).


In the crucial debate in the Commons, on 23 February 1807, the actual margin of victory
was 283 in favour and only 16 opposed.60
The ‘noes’ figure is intriguing. In the last previous vote on a total abolition bill in
1805, a far thinner house had produced 70 votes for abolition and 77 against. Two
years later, in a House casting twice as many votes, the bill’s opponents could produce
no more than one-fifth as many votes as they had in 1805.

Wilberforce was campaigning for total abolition of the trade now, and the author rhetorically asks why opposition to abolition had died out in the Commons. His answer is "the weight of public opinion."


Liverpool’s General Gascoyne complained that:
every measure that invention or art could devise to create a popular clamour was
resorted to on this occasion. The church, the theatre, and the press, had laboured
to create a prejudice against the Slave Trade . . . The attempts to make a popular
clamour against the trade were never so conspicuous as during the late Election, when
the public newspapers teemed with abuse of the trade, and when promises were
required from different candidates that they would oppose its continuance. There never
had been any question agitated since that of parliamentary reform, in which so much
industry had been exerted to raise a popular prejudice and clamour, and to make
the trade an object of universal detestation. In every manufacturing town and borough
in the kingdom, all those arts had been tried.61

'All these damned people in the country believing the same things that inconvenience me and voting on that basis!' Wow, what a conservative. Sure enough, his Wiki page identifies him as an "Ultra-Tory", which was a far-right faction at the time. Now, once the bill made it through the legislature and received royal assent the government promptly collapsed, returning Tories to a slim majority, but the new government could not revoke the law. In what I think might be be an early example of thermostatic public opinion, the success of the antislavery campaign fanned a lot of social discord and


[i]n Liverpool, rioters terrorized William Roscoe, one of their M.P.s, into withdrawing from politics in 1807 because he had voted for the bill.

Boo Liverpool, go Manchester.

In an epilogue on 1814, the author describes how Wilberforce criticized the government's (first) Treaty of Paris ending the Continental War because it relicensed the French slave trade for five years. The London Committee once again reactivated and launch another round of public relations campaigning.


Once more abolitionists launched the largest petition campaign Britain had ever seen.65
In some ways it was the most impressive of the entire struggle. Clarkson and some
quakers threw themselves back into their old routine of co-ordination, now eased
by many other hands. Begnning in late June, the abolitionists presented parliament
with 806 petitions before the session ended late in July. Ultimately, a total of
1,370 petitions arrived, well above the average annual number of all other petitions
reaching parliament between 181 1 and 1815. At one point abolitionists estimated
that 750,000 people had signed up. Paul Kielstra has calculated the final total to have
been 1,375,000, although this figure may include petitions sent up to both houses
of parliament. In any event, for a nation with no more than four million males over
the age of 16, between a fifth and a third of all those eligible to sign had added their
names to the appeal.



Castlereagh’s own evaluation of the campaign was concise: ‘the nation is bent upon
this object. I believe that there is hardly a village that has not met and petitioned.’
The duke of Wellington registered a similar impression on his way back to France
to renegotiate the slave trade article: ‘I was not aware till I had been some time here
[London] of the degree of frenzy existing here about the slave trade. People in general
appear to think that it would suit the policy of this nation to go to war to put an end
to that abominable traffic.’”


When Clarkson wrote of the petitions, ‘All England is moving’, he could finally
claim that this opinion was as close as Britons might ever get to consensus. Had he
chosen to update his History in 1814, he might well have summed up public opinion
as: in favour of revision, 1,370 petitions; against, nil.

Crucially, even the West Indies interests had come around to supporting abolition, after having been such fierce opponents for a generation. Another process familiar to our contemporary relationship to capitalist industry.

The author concludes:


With this great surge of petitioning, abolition moved beyond registering a protest
against an article in a peace treaty. It definitively launched Britain into a long-term
international moral and political campaign against the transatlantic slave trade. It was
a pioneering development in the link being forged between the terms of public
discourse and the mobilization of public opinion. In the course of a single generation
abolition had evolved from the programme of an innovative public contender into
a settled fixture of national policy. The first great reform movement to revive
after the general eclipse of the 1790s, its power was successively ratified in legislative
victories and governmental policy. By 1814 abolitionism had spawned the first human
rights organization and altered the world’s perspective on the future of slavery as an
institution.69




In case you missed it, this is the time to read up on the concepts of "mobilizing" and "organizing" the public in mass politics. It's, uh, kind of what we need to overthrow conservative and monied interests in Western societies today.

[Pannonian]

In case you missed it, this is the time to read up on the concepts of "mobilizing" and "organizing" the public in mass politics. It's, uh, kind of what we need to overthrow conservative and monied interests in Western societies today.

They're already familiar with it. See Jon Lansman (Momentum-Labour) and Dominic Cummings (Brexit). It's a matter of devising lies for the target audience and disseminating it via unmoderated and untracked social media. Once you have that, you'll have a core following that will do your bidding no matter what happens or what you say and do. They will always parrot the decisive argument, "the will of the people".

[rory_20_uk]

They're already familiar with it. See Jon Lansman (Momentum-Labour) and Dominic Cummings (Brexit). It's a matter of devising lies for the target audience and disseminating it via unmoderated and untracked social media. Once you have that, you'll have a core following that will do your bidding no matter what happens or what you say and do. They will always parrot the decisive argument, "the will of the people".

And you are doing a pretty good with that.

~:smoking:

[Pannonian]

And you are doing a pretty good with that.

~:smoking:

So even though the stories I post are sourced in trustworthy media (The Times, FT, etc.) which can be corroborated by anyone who cares to do so, it is in the same category as the Momentum-Leave-generated memes that refuse to be cross-examined, and thus I am perpetuating lies like them. This is one of the versions of controlling communication, by painting empirical truth with the same brush as intentionally created lies, and using the core following to disseminate the latter whilst smearing the former.

Example 1: x is colluding with the EU against the interests of the UK, as raised by IA.

What he was referring to: A story in the Mail saying that police are investigating Remainers about collusion with the EU over the Benn Act.
Any corroboration: Only denials, most specifically by Dominic Grieve, who pointed to the likely source being Dominic Cummings, and that the story about police investigation likely being false because Cummings does not have the authority to order one.

Example 2: Boris Johnson is approaching certain EU countries, one of which is Hungary, about a veto to any British request for an extension. The story appeared in The Times.
Any corroboration: None specific so far, although other media have been pursuing it. Members of the Hungarian government have reiterated that they will not break with the 27, wondering what on earth the UK could offer that could tempt them to damage their relationship with the EU.

Example 3: Daniel Kawczynski asked the Polish government to veto PM May's request for an extension. This appeared in Kawczynski's twitter.
Any corroboration: It was announced by Kawczynski, and copies of his tweet can be found. The Polish government said no, it was not going against the common agreed line.

NB. IA referred to the first story, but did not specify his source. I named the sources for the second and third stories. What is the credibility of the respective stories?

[rory_20_uk]

So even though the stories I post are sourced in trustworthy media (The Times, FT, etc.) which can be corroborated by anyone who cares to do so, it is in the same category as the Momentum-Leave-generated memes that refuse to be cross-examined, and thus I am perpetuating lies like them. This is one of the versions of controlling communication, by painting empirical truth with the same brush as intentionally created lies, and using the core following to disseminate the latter whilst smearing the former.

Example 1: x is colluding with the EU against the interests of the UK, as raised by IA.

What he was referring to: A story in the Mail saying that police are investigating Remainers about collusion with the EU over the Benn Act.
Any corroboration: Only denials, most specifically by Dominic Grieve, who pointed to the likely source being Dominic Cummings, and that the story about police investigation likely being false because Cummings does not have the authority to order one.

Example 2: Boris Johnson is approaching certain EU countries, one of which is Hungary, about a veto to any British request for an extension. The story appeared in The Times.
Any corroboration: None specific so far, although other media have been pursuing it. Members of the Hungarian government have reiterated that they will not break with the 27, wondering what on earth the UK could offer that could tempt them to damage their relationship with the EU.

Example 3: Daniel Kawczynski asked the Polish government to veto PM May's request for an extension. This appeared in Kawczynski's twitter.
Any corroboration: It was announced by Kawczynski, and copies of his tweet can be found. The Polish government said no, it was not going against the common agreed line.

NB. IA referred to the first story, but did not specify his source. I named the sources for the second and third stories. What is the credibility of the respective stories?

Well done ignoring such statements as:

1) Pretending all Leavers are the same
2) Referring to Boris as somehow a person Leavers wanted.

So, do tell about controlling communication, bias and painting lies as the empirical truth.

~:smoking:

[Idaho]

The Telegraph claims most Britons now just wants Brexit Delivered: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/09/10/britons-want-brexit-referendum-respected-poll-reveals-public/

This includes 35% of Remainers and 54% of the population overall (a significant increase on the referendum result).

This is because everyone is utterly bored of a self defeating and expensive distraction that will cure no illness, prevent no crime, nor teach any child.

Alas whatever we do we will be eating Brexit for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next decade as unraveling huge amounts of shared bureaucracy will be replaced by having to do it all in house.

[Beskar]

50/50 where this should go, but full credit to Matt Hancock this morning.

He was on BBC Breakfast News talking about Mental Health Funding and a New Campaign, then the presenters kept asking him about Brexit. He flipped his lid, paraphrasing from memory: "This is not what this interview is about. Nothing has changed with Brexit and the negotiations are on-going and not going to talk about them while they are. This is about Mental Health Funding. What is this obsession with Brexit, there is more to life. When I agreed to this interview, it was about Mental health funding, not bloody Brexit."

Oh, looks like he put it on his Twitter:
https://twitter.com/MattHancock/status/1181182428221775880?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet


As for the campaign: #EveryMindMatters https://www.nhs.uk/oneyou/every-mind-matters/

[Montmorency]

They're already familiar with it. See Jon Lansman (Momentum-Labour) and Dominic Cummings (Brexit). It's a matter of devising lies for the target audience and disseminating it via unmoderated and untracked social media. Once you have that, you'll have a core following that will do your bidding no matter what happens or what you say and do. They will always parrot the decisive argument, "the will of the people".

How cynical. Think of any social or political movement in British history whose results you approve of, and you'll find people doing the hard work of convincing citizens to vote, march, strike, petition, or what have you. The world we have today doesn't exist because some engineer willed it from nothing.

In unrelated news, supermajorities (https://news.gallup.com/poll/267143/universal-basic-income-favored-canada-not.aspx) in the UK and Canada support a universal income program. The question, as always, is how to translate positive feeling into sausage.

(In before our replies aren't intelligble to one another because we're both actually talking to ourselves.)



This is because everyone is utterly bored of a self defeating and expensive distraction that will cure no illness, prevent no crime, nor teach any child.

Alas whatever we do we will be eating Brexit for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next decade as unraveling huge amounts of shared bureaucracy will be replaced by having to do it all in house.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPJzhocW7vw

[Pannonian]

How cynical. Think of any social or political movement in British history whose results you approve of, and you'll find people doing the hard work of convincing citizens to vote, march, strike, petition, or what have you. The world we have today doesn't exist because some engineer willed it from nothing.

In unrelated news, supermajorities (https://news.gallup.com/poll/267143/universal-basic-income-favored-canada-not.aspx) in the UK and Canada support a universal income program. The question, as always, is how to translate positive feeling into sausage.

(In before our replies aren't intelligble to one another because we're both actually talking to ourselves.)

Never before has there been such contempt of constitution nor such popular support for this nor such dismissal of evidence-based arguments. In the past, strong arguments, strong evidence, breaking of long established rules etc. would have drastic impact on political discourse. Now, you have political operatives openly ignoring Parliament, politicians ignoring the law, and backing it up, significant parts of the electorate ignoring concrete arguments if it counters the side they've chosen. What politicians have realised is that, if you mobilise enough of a core, and social media memes are an effective way of getting this done, then you can push the popular will argument to justify absolutely anything they wish to do. Democracy is such a sacred cow, and liberalism so ingrained in our societies, that this argument overrides any constitutional norms, the rule of law, etc. "It is the will of the people".

I was part of the previously biggest political movement in my lifetime prior to the Brexit referendum. We had people all over the country coordinating their efforts for one goal: to vote out the Tories. But the politicians never lied to the extent that the Brexiteers did (the Labour government famously kept many of its promises in its first 100 days in office), nor was there much debate that could not be backed by concrete arguments. It was a massive political movement, but it was based on what would now be termed moderate politics, but was then just part of the only politics we knew.

I know what a political movement is. I know that it need not require extremist politics that ignores societal norms. I know that it can be founded on what used to be taken for granted: sound, evidence-based arguments with respected input from experts. When these bounds are present as a matter of course, democracy is a great thing. When these things are deemed irrelevant, and the will of the majority is the only thing that matters, I have only one thing to say: this is stupid.

[Beskar]

So much for the Boris-Trump special relationship.
https://i.imgur.com/ow7TpmU.jpg

[Greyblades]

...because that guy clips his nails too short?

Links are your friend. Seemingly random images without context arent.

[Idaho]

So much for the Boris-Trump special relationship.
https://i.imgur.com/ow7TpmU.jpg

America never gives up it's spooks. But will go to war/assassinate/sanction other countries that do the same.

[rory_20_uk]

So much for the Boris-Trump special relationship.
https://i.imgur.com/ow7TpmU.jpg

Trump has never, ever had friends. He has transient associates who are viewed as winners and useful. This is true for decades - why would Boris think he's special?

And especially now, Trump needs both new news as well as to look strong and to beef up his base - and telling the UK to go jump and that he'll not give up a US Citizen.

The UK government won't push it since killing some pleb isn't really going to bother the Foreign Office.

~:smoking:

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Trump's base are largely patriots, American apologists, and a smattering of out and out nationalists (along with the racist nationalists and reactionary loons that he seems content on keeping near if not 'officially' in the tent). They more or less expect him to champion a US citizen over any non-citizen at all times.

[Beskar]

...because that guy clips his nails too short?

Links are your friend. Seemingly random images without context arent.

Those are Trump's finger nails.
That is Trump's card.
If you read the details and followed any recent news, it was possible to realise what it was referring to.

But here is your link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-49995867
Also a tweet without the picture close-up. https://twitter.com/jabinbotsford/status/1182050611392585728

The USA won't be handing over the diplomats wife to the UK after she drove on the wrong side of the road and killed a guy on a bike. After the incident, she got on the first plane out of dodge back to the United States.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

This is unfortunate as we must now expel her husband.

[Beskar]

This is unfortunate as we must now expel her husband.

I feel Rory's read is closer on this.

[InsaneApache]

Isn't her husband the type of 'diplomat' that ends up playing roulette and drinking dry martinis?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I feel Rory's read is closer on this.

I imagine he will, at best, be "forcibly reassigned".

[Greyblades]

Some good news at last! (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50073102)

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Funnily enough, one of the guys at work predicted this.

At the end of the day, if you want to block certain content in the UK it needs to be done at the ISP level in the first instance - it shouldn't be done at the end-user level.

[Beskar]

Funnily enough, one of the guys at work predicted this.

At the end of the day, if you want to block certain content in the UK it needs to be done at the ISP level in the first instance - it shouldn't be done at the end-user level.

It is already blocked at the ISP level. You got to opt-out of the filter.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

It is already blocked at the ISP level. You got to opt-out of the filter.

Everybody opts out, though.

The point is that the rhetoric was very much like the sort of thing that comes out of Iran or China

[Pannonian]

How many times has Johnson faced direct scrutiny so far? In the UK system, we're supposed to be able to interrogate the PM once a week in PMQs. He became PM on 24th July. It's now more than 3 months since he became PM. He faced his second PMQ this week. And he's also cried off a meeting with a Commons committee.

Boris Johnson turned up at PMQs, but how do you interrogate someone who's not even pretending to tell the truth? (https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/boris-johnson-jeremy-corbyn-pmqs-house-of-commons-a9167901.html)


It’s all just noise and shouting. Say whatever you like in the hope that someone’s listening. Doesn’t matter that none of it’s true because the person who hears it probably won’t know that.

There will be a general election, at some point, and we know that this will be the strategy. Dominic Cummings has done it before and he’ll do it again. Already we have seen the Conservatives’ posters, pumped out on Facebook on Tuesday night and already shared 17,000 times.

“Boris’s Brexit deal has passed parliament, but Labour have now voted to delay it,” it says.

It is painful to have to point out that if it had passed parliament, it would already be law. It hasn’t even come close to passing parliament. They know it, but they also know the people they want to lie to don’t.

It’s clear, right now, in late 2019, that big electoral events in big democratic countries happen at the mercy of social media, which nobody has yet worked out how to regulate or control.

[Furunculus]

The bill has to be paused as a consequence of legislation passed in the new labour era, which the wab falls foul of as a consequence of the failure of the timetabling motion for said WAB bill.

Therefore is seems like a perfectly saleable message on the doorstep that labour have voted for the bill then voted to delay it.

Politics is cruel; every time parliament refuses to vote for an election we can mentally delete another labour mp from whatever total arrives when the GE finally happens.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

The bill has to be paused as a consequence of legislation passed in the new labour era, which the wab falls foul of as a consequence of the failure of the timetabling motion for said WAB bill.

Therefore is seems like a perfectly saleable message on the doorstep that labour have voted for the bill then voted to delay it.

Politics is cruel; every time parliament refuses to vote for an election we can mentally delete another labour mp from whatever total arrives when the GE finally happens.

Read a Guardian piece that suggested that a December election would work to the overall advantage of Labour (though most Labour MPs favor delaying elections for about half a dozen different reasons -- though these seem to be disparate groups, not a case where all of those favoring delay share their rationale) by placing Johnson's government under election scrutiny and election laws regarding media access. What say you lot?

[Furunculus]

Not sure why the scrutiny matters.
The only thing happening is brexit and that has been under intense scrutiny for three years now.
It sounds to me like more of the in-crowd narrative the remain-left tell themselves about the 'congenital liar' we have for a prime minister...

early december means agreeing it now, which does minimise tje damage of holding up brexit while refusing an election.
but what happens in the next six weeks on the WAB and how does that reflect on labour... lots of imponderbles!

[Idaho]

Politics is cruel; every time parliament refuses to vote for an election we can mentally delete another labour mp from whatever total arrives when the GE finally happens.
There certainly is that dynamic from labour brexiteers. However clipping the Tory wings by ruling out no deal will have all the Uber brexiteers frothing and ukip/Brexit/other loons will split the Tory vote - and that will sting a lot more.

[rory_20_uk]

Read a Guardian piece that suggested that a December election would work to the overall advantage of Labour (though most Labour MPs favor delaying elections for about half a dozen different reasons -- though these seem to be disparate groups, not a case where all of those favoring delay share their rationale) by placing Johnson's government under election scrutiny and election laws regarding media access. What say you lot?

Most politicians view politics as a career - as can be seen whenever there is a challenge to an incumbent.

Ergo, scrutiny of the government is of much lesser import than loosing one's seat, especially when one can keep it warm for at least another couple of years under the Fixed Term Act.

The Tory vote tends to not be split in meaningful elections since anything is better than supporting Corbyn.

~:smoking:

[Pannonian]

Most politicians view politics as a career - as can be seen whenever there is a challenge to an incumbent.

Ergo, scrutiny of the government is of much lesser import than loosing one's seat, especially when one can keep it warm for at least another couple of years under the Fixed Term Act.

The Tory vote tends to not be split in meaningful elections since anything is better than supporting Corbyn.

~:smoking:

It's a bit hard to scrutinise the PM when he keeps evading formal occasions for scrutiny. PMQs are supposed to be every week. He's faced 2 PMQs in 3 months, and has also cancelled a meeting with a Commons committee. Will you be voting for him in the next GE?

[rory_20_uk]

It's a bit hard to scrutinise the PM when he keeps evading formal occasions for scrutiny. PMQs are supposed to be every week. He's faced 2 PMQs in 3 months, and has also cancelled a meeting with a Commons committee. Will you be voting for him in the next GE?

You do realise I don't vote for him, I vote for my local representative in Parliament - an MP? Unlike the USA?

Rather concerning if you aren't aware of this.

~:smoking:

[Pannonian]

You do realise I don't vote for him, I vote for my local representative in Parliament - an MP? Unlike the USA?

Rather concerning if you aren't aware of this.

~:smoking:

Does the prospect of having Corbyn in number 10 stop you from voting Labour?

[rory_20_uk]

Does the prospect of having Corbyn in number 10 stop you from voting Labour?

Hell yes. His plans are so half baked and unfunded I wonder how much damage he'd cause before he was stopped. Barring a significant war, few other events would have quite such catastrophic effects to the UK. His front bench appears to be selected for their slavish devotion to him rather than their ability (a trait increasingly shared with all major parties). He is far and away (for me) the best reason to vote for a Conservative candidate with the resigned view of "lesser of two evils".

It is not specifically his vision of the future I have issue with, it is the complete lack of any practical ways of getting there. Presidential candidates in the USA are advocating wealth taxes that would cause a slow transfer of money from the rich to the state. Corbyn appears to want to Nationalise half a dozen industries, increase taxes, take shares from the FTSE 100 and also massively increase borrowing - almost all of this as an opening gambit. And unlike the USA, if he had a majority of one vote in the Commons he could get that lot into law extremely quickly.

~:smoking:

[Montmorency]

Hell yes. His plans are so half baked and unfunded I wonder how much damage he'd cause before he was stopped. Barring a significant war, few other events would have quite such catastrophic effects to the UK. His front bench appears to be selected for their slavish devotion to him rather than their ability (a trait increasingly shared with all major parties). He is far and away (for me) the best reason to vote for a Conservative candidate with the resigned view of "lesser of two evils".

It is not specifically his vision of the future I have issue with, it is the complete lack of any practical ways of getting there. Presidential candidates in the USA are advocating wealth taxes that would cause a slow transfer of money from the rich to the state. Corbyn appears to want to Nationalise half a dozen industries, increase taxes, take shares from the FTSE 100 and also massively increase borrowing - almost all of this as an opening gambit.

We really need to talk about this. You're operating under some misconceptions. You say that Corbyn's government would have catastrophic effects on the UK - but why? Leaving aside personal leadership qualities, your primary anxieties have been focused on his proposed reforms. To show that these anxieties are not misguided you need to specify projected cause and effect.

Nationalization: Didn't I already post this (https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-politics-labour-nationalisati/factbox-what-would-a-labour-party-government-nationalise-and-how-idUKKCN1SR0ZC)?

Analysts have valued the regulated asset values of water and energy networks potentially facing nationalisation at around 125 billion pounds [...] Labour campaigned in the 2017 election on a manifesto to bring rail companies, energy supply networks, water systems and mail delivery into public ownership.
You can disagree or disagree, or adjust the priorities, but where's the looming catastrophe? Even if you are convinced nationalized sectors or enterprises will be less efficient in delivering services (which shouldn't be taken for granted), there's no apocalypse there.

Taxation: So US Democratic tax proposals are good, but UK Labour tax proposals are horrid? Why? Maybe you think the promise not to raise taxes on the bottom 95% is short-sighted or limiting, but... It's not clear, do you think Labour should propose more, fewer, or different taxes?

"Take shares": You have definitely badly misunderstood the nature of the workers' ownership proposal. There is no intent to buy shares, the law would create a requirement for certain companies to issue new shares. At a rate of 1% a year for 10 years. This would have a direct fiscal impact of Zero. I'm sure there are many quibbles to be had with the plan. For example, is it wise to cap workers' dividends and divert the excess as taxation to the government in the form of a 'hidden' corporate tax? But again, something that can be rationally debated - not apocalyptic.

Borrowing: What I can find (https://www.ft.com/content/c3b66b56-cb03-11e9-af46-b09e8bfe60c0) is, in effect, that Labour's current tax proposals could only in theory fund most of its proposed agenda without violating its promise to keep "public debt lower as a proportion of national income at the end of a parliament than at the start." From a neutral perspective that should, uh, how do I put this - sound pretty good. It suggests the Labour manifesto is on sound footing and only can't necessarily satisfy the most radical or extravagant desires of the left. But even if Labour did violate this rule and borrowed a few billion extra a year, increasing debt-to-GDP ratio by a couple points would likely not cause the disintegration of the UK economy - there would to my awareness be minimal historical or factual basis for such a claim. The ratio has already been gradually rising for years anyway, so what's a failed promise to arrest its rise? If you think this is a serious problem (again, no basis for it) you must think so irrespective of who would be in office.


And unlike the USA, if he had a majority of one vote in the Commons he could get that lot into law extremely quickly.

Theoretically a 1-vote majority in the Senate here could pass whatever it pleases. In reality, there is no party unity in the world that can pass major legislation on a party line. Think, that's the very story of May's Brexit isn't it? The overhwelming majority Labour would need to garner to comfortably unilaterally proceed with its whole agenda in an unprecedented fashion would be its own cushion against any capital reaction.

One last difficulty may be that you think Corbyn would want to implement reforms "extremely quickly" in the sense of without an appreciable transition. Why do you think that? As we saw with the workers' ownership plan, Corbyn has at least some deference to reasonable time tables. It is obvious to anyone that a reform smoothly implemented over years could drive the system into paroxysms if on immediate order. (This is why everyone understands that minimum wage increases are to be phased in gradually, for example.)

[rory_20_uk]

I have to demonstrate cause and effect on theoretical future plans? Wow. High bar.

Economics and economies are based as much on sentiment and emotions as reality. Things fail if people think they will and can succeed against all the odds if enough people believe they should. There are many who are very fearful of Corbyn before he has done anything Him merely being in charge would make a bear market more likely due to if nothing else irrational fear.

So, time to build up trust and stability? Well, no...

First off, Nationalization to start off with, the cost has been estimated by some to be not far off £200 billion. Labour has also occasionally said they'd just not bother with paying the market price and just pay the nominal value. So either this is spending money the country doesn't have, or is undermining trust in the UK. Either way, this would mean the UK would be even more dependant on the Markets right at the time they have cause a massive upset to them. Does this end up in the Courts, does the UK government have to pay over the odds to get people to sell or are there some archaic King Henry VIII powers to just basically force things along?

Taxation The Democrats taxation proposals are better, not perfect and Corbyn has said he'll increase the maximum tax band. Which by itself in the 1970's managed to decrease taxation since those earning this much didn't just sit around and pay, they left. When political parties talk of closing tax loopholes there are invariably high hopes of the money rolling in but historically this has rarely happened. Perhaps this time its different...

Take shares Yeah, if I have a company and you tell me to make new shares to dilute down what I have and then give them to the state that is taking. Dress it up as you like, my dividends will be lower by the 10% - unless you think companies will restructure their shares to offset this decrease in dividend of 10%. Companies do not have to be listed in the UK and given others do not require this tax, why not go elsewhere? And this is happening as companies are Nationalised.

Borrowing Ah, the old "increase GDP so debt is a low percentage". Labour has previously undertaken this wheeze under Brown and the only problem is if the economy shrinks, then the debt balloons. With guaranteed spending with a vague promise that the money will come from somewhere and sort it all out that again is very worrying. Again, the only concrete facet is the increase in requirement for money. Borrowing tends to become more expensive the more that is required.

Create a National Pharmaceutical company This is my favourite idea, given how it demonstrates his almost utter lack of understanding of the industry and indeed most things outside of the Communist Manifesto. Either he really thinks he can just magic a company that is better at discovering drugs than everyone else, or he is just going to invalidate patents for existing products and then manufacture them for UK use and the rest of the world will just be cool with that. The problems with this just go on and on (mainly as I work in this industry so I have a greater understanding).

Corbyn's plans are together changes we have not seen for decades. Either he won't finish in 5 years (and risk the grand vision not working) or he'll be all talk and no trousers. He says he would do all of this slowly and so we have to take the chap at his word? Potentially the ongoing mess that is Brexit hasn't ended, and on the Civil Service will then be tasked with a vast number of new activities. Will he just increase the numbers to sort this out? Not to mention how does one nationalise an industry slowly? Dragging things out tends to make things even worse than a quick change due to the ongoing uncertainty.

Each aim by itself isn't going to destroy the country, but they are quite synergistic in terms of their potential damage - to be clear the ones that are either going to increase borrowing or nationalise / pseudo-nationalise companies. Close tax loopholes by all means. Add VAT to private school places (and then realise all the money goes to new school places as a percentage of parents can no longer afford it) - OK, that might save some money.

~:smoking:

[Beskar]

B]Create a National Pharmaceutical company[/B] This is my favourite idea, given how it demonstrates his almost utter lack of understanding of the industry and indeed most things outside of the Communist Manifesto. Either he really thinks he can just magic a company that is better at discovering drugs than everyone else, or he is just going to invalidate patents for existing products and then manufacture them for UK use and the rest of the world will just be cool with that. The problems with this just go on and on (mainly as I work in this industry so I have a greater understanding).

It is not the most terrible idea. There are advantages to such a system without doing both of those things:
- It wouldn't need to invalidate patents, as many common medicines are generic. So it would be able to hypothetically produce these cheaper (especially if an NHS preferred supplier) due to economies of scale. They could potentially also licence medications for a reduced cost. So let's say company A charges $1000 for their drug, and it is does not meet the NICE Guidelines for Cost-Effectiveness, they could licence it to NatPharma so they get some money from it, without even needing to worry about manufacture.
- As for Drug Research, there could be efforts to fund not-so-profitable options (antibiotics, for dementia, etc) as some private companies simply refuse to bother due to the low-chance of recouping the losses.

[rory_20_uk]

It is not the most terrible idea. There are advantages to such a system without doing both of those things:
- It wouldn't need to invalidate patents, as many common medicines are generic. So it would be able to hypothetically produce these cheaper (especially if an NHS preferred supplier) due to economies of scale. They could potentially also licence medications for a reduced cost. So let's say company A charges $1000 for their drug, and it is does not meet the NICE Guidelines for Cost-Effectiveness, they could licence it to NatPharma so they get some money from it, without even needing to worry about manufacture.
- As for Drug Research, there could be efforts to fund not-so-profitable options (antibiotics, for dementia, etc) as some private companies simply refuse to bother due to the low-chance of recouping the losses.

Generics in the UK are already cheap; drugs that don't get NICE approval don't get used much. Manufacturers offer confidential discounts to get a green light. TEVA et al already have economies of scale for generics..

Billions has been spent on dementia. the trials haven't worked. Companies are trying, but they are failing. Antibiotics isn't a question of more molecules, it is down to the regulatory framework being adapted. Lots of antibiotics have been refused licences since they are not better than current gold standard, when in fact what the question should be is do they have any efficacy as once a drug is dumped that is basically it... Perhaps some effort to reuse these would be worthwhile.

~:smoking:

[Montmorency]

I have to demonstrate cause and effect on theoretical future plans? Wow. High bar.

Significant claims need significant evidence.


Economics and economies are based as much on sentiment and emotions as reality. Things fail if people think they will and can succeed against all the odds if enough people believe they should. There are many who are very fearful of Corbyn before he has done anything Him merely being in charge would make a bear market more likely due to if nothing else irrational fear.

Your theory here is that there is so much propaganda against Corbyn, and so influential, that perception would automatically cripple a Corbyn government? Aside from being highly speculative, it sounds like an argument for revolution to me.



First off, Nationalization to start off with, the cost has been estimated by some to be not far off £200 billion. Labour has also occasionally said they'd just not bother with paying the market price and just pay the nominal value. So either this is spending money the country doesn't have, or is undermining trust in the UK. Either way, this would mean the UK would be even more dependant on the Markets right at the time they have cause a massive upset to them. Does this end up in the Courts, does the UK government have to pay over the odds to get people to sell or are there some archaic King Henry VIII powers to just basically force things along?

Other possibilities include:

1. The industries and the government negotiate a haircut after a lengthy process, including such factors as existing liabilities, subsidies, and deferred costs.
2. Labour government accepts a more limited nationalization agenda.


Taxation The Democrats taxation proposals are better, not perfect and Corbyn has said he'll increase the maximum tax band. Which by itself in the 1970's managed to decrease taxation since those earning this much didn't just sit around and pay, they left. When political parties talk of closing tax loopholes there are invariably high hopes of the money rolling in but historically this has rarely happened. Perhaps this time its different...

Within the remit of domestic taxation there's clearly an argument to be made for a comprehensive taxation to minimize the "whack-a-mole" aspect. But I doubt either of us are familiar with the details of Labour's proposals or the various projections for them, let alone what additions or changes can be made to optimize them. Clearly there is much to be debated. Take the gauntlet if you wish.


Take shares Yeah, if I have a company and you tell me to make new shares to dilute down what I have and then give them to the state that is taking. Dress it up as you like, my dividends will be lower by the 10% - unless you think companies will restructure their shares to offset this decrease in dividend of 10%. Companies do not have to be listed in the UK and given others do not require this tax, why not go elsewhere? And this is happening as companies are Nationalised.

Lower dividends are a problem for existing shareholders, not the company, and a temporary one at that. The companies that haven't relocated over Brexit probably won't relocate over this relatively mild measure. Especially given that is uniformly applied to a broad class of companies, unlike the idiosyncratic effects of a contracting economy and trade/regulatory disruption.


Borrowing Ah, the old "increase GDP so debt is a low percentage". Labour has previously undertaken this wheeze under Brown and the only problem is if the economy shrinks, then the debt balloons. With guaranteed spending with a vague promise that the money will come from somewhere and sort it all out that again is very worrying. Again, the only concrete facet is the increase in requirement for money. Borrowing tends to become more expensive the more that is required.

Labour promises zero added debt-to-GDP ratio. They will probably not live up to this promise. You offer no reason to believe they would break this promise so far as to go out of their way to relentlessly drive up the debt without countermeasure - let alone do this to the point of deleterious effects for the UK's accounts.


Create a National Pharmaceutical company This is my favourite idea, given how it demonstrates his almost utter lack of understanding of the industry and indeed most things outside of the Communist Manifesto. Either he really thinks he can just magic a company that is better at discovering drugs than everyone else, or he is just going to invalidate patents for existing products and then manufacture them for UK use and the rest of the world will just be cool with that. The problems with this just go on and on (mainly as I work in this industry so I have a greater understanding).

I don't understand your complaint, but I'm not aware of the proposal so I'll have to look it up later.

Meanwhile here is a tangential essay (http://cepr.net/publications/briefings/testimony/drugs-are-cheap-why-do-we-let-governments-make-them-expensive) by economist Dean Baker on how the patent system as monopoly rent is a fundamental defect in pharmaceutical research and commerce, and the need to incentivize a copy-left framework for new research.


Corbyn's plans are together changes we have not seen for decades. Either he won't finish in 5 years (and risk the grand vision not working) or he'll be all talk and no trousers. He says he would do all of this slowly and so we have to take the chap at his word?

Or he could just do some of it? Like every politician?

You don't have to "take his word", take the word of the political constraints at hand.


Potentially the ongoing mess that is Brexit hasn't ended, and on the Civil Service will then be tasked with a vast number of new activities. Will he just increase the numbers to sort this out?

From an electoral point of view Brexit is the overriding issue (which Corbyn hasn't recognized), but it's more convenient rather than less to align domestic reforms with the conclusion of withdrawal negotiations and hashing the subsequent relationship. (Or, he calls a second referendum, which has two realistic outcomes: clarifying the withdrawal process, or cancelling it altogether and restoring a measure of stability.)


Not to mention how does one nationalise an industry slowly? Dragging things out tends to make things even worse than a quick change due to the ongoing uncertainty.[

I don't understand. The process of doing so is worked out over some period of time to take into account the necessary logistical and legal considerations and stakeholder input, as well as to create readiness for a smooth assumption of new administration. The final handover presumably happens in a day. We would have to refer to other nationalizations in British history for a comparison point.


Each aim by itself isn't going to destroy the country, but they are quite synergistic in terms of their potential damage - to be clear the ones that are either going to increase borrowing or nationalise / pseudo-nationalise companies.

What I gather is you believe he would be able and willing to simultaneously implement everything in his legislative agenda (I haven't heard anything about the executive power with respect to Corbyn), implement it as badly as it can be implemented, and for the tail-end risk scenarios of the results of these policies to manifest in a perfect storm.

It sounds unreasonable, like you've internalized the calculated fearmongering that you referenced at the beginning of the post as poisoning perceptions of a Corbyn administration. Kind of circular reasoning around self-fulfilling prophecy.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Other possibilities include:

1. The industries and the government negotiate a haircut after a lengthy process, including such factors as existing liabilities, subsidies, and deferred costs.
2. Labour government accepts a more limited nationalization agenda.

A haircut on a forced acquisition is the same as forced sale at a devalued price - it's theft. Regardless of whether you think services should have been privatised they were and are now in private hands. Only totalitarian governments steal from their own citizens in peacetime.


Lower dividends are a problem for existing shareholders, not the company, and a temporary one at that. The companies that haven't relocated over Brexit probably won't relocate over this relatively mild measure. Especially given that is uniformly applied to a broad class of companies, unlike the idiosyncratic effects of a contracting economy and trade/regulatory disruption.

Devaluing shares doesn't just lower dividends - although that is a problem - it takes a percentage share away from current owners. Let's say a family retains 55% of the shares in their company - what happens when the government forces them to issue 10% new shares, devaluing the current shares from 100% of the total to 90%?

Their shares are now 90/100*55=49.5%.

They lose control of the company.

They only way around that would be to create even more new shares and buy them back on the open market - spending capital you probably don't have and screwing over your other shareholders in the process - assuming you can do that and don't lose those share too. This is a major issue, especially in the UK where companies have had to issue new shares because of our historically weak manufacturing to raise capital and those shares have been bought up by American conglomorates that then take over the company and dismantle parts of it.

For example, Cadbury's Chocolate being bought out by Hershy's and having its historical factory closed.

[Montmorency]

A haircut on a forced acquisition is the same as forced sale at a devalued price - it's theft. Regardless of whether you think services should have been privatised they were and are now in private hands. Only totalitarian governments steal from their own citizens in peacetime.

Negotiations are stealing. ~:rolleyes: Well, I suppose the good ol' USA has a long record of stealing from its citizens in peacetime.

A forced taking at a unilaterally-set price would be closer to theft. This is not it and I consider it perfectly fair. Especially when so much of the ownership in the targeted industries is of foreign (especially EU) governments, meaning the negotiation nestles into the context of diplomacy between state peers.


Devaluing shares doesn't just lower dividends - although that is a problem - it takes a percentage share away from current owners. Let's say a family retains 55% of the shares in their company - what happens when the government forces them to issue 10% new shares, devaluing the current shares from 100% of the total to 90%?

Their shares are now 90/100*55=49.5%.

They lose control of the company.

I'm not sure how you could get so off the track. Companies issue new shares all the time for all sorts of reasons, especially to raise new capital. WTF I can't even begin to describe how common this is, and has nothing to do with the government.

So how do majority stakeholders prevent share dilution leading to loss of majority stake in these common situations? They buy new shares themselves. Share dilution is a risk every private investor in publicly traded companies accepts. This is like asking why anyone would start a business if a possibility is that the venture will fail.

Mamma mia.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Negotiations are stealing. ~:rolleyes: Well, I suppose the good ol' USA has a long record of stealing from its citizens in peacetime.

A forced taking at a unilaterally-set price would be closer to theft. This is not it and I consider it perfectly fair. Especially when so much of the ownership in the targeted industries is of foreign (especially EU) governments, meaning the negotiation nestles into the context of diplomacy between state peers.

Forced purchase, negotiated haircut, is the same as a purchase at a devalued price - just offset for "optics".


I'm not sure how you could get so off the track. Companies issue new shares all the time for all sorts of reasons, especially to raise new capital. WTF I can't even begin to describe how common this is, and has nothing to do with the government.

So how do majority stakeholders prevent share dilution leading to loss of majority stake in these common situations? They buy new shares themselves. Share dilution is a risk every private investor in publicly traded companies accepts. This is like asking why anyone would start a business if a possibility is that the venture will fail.

Mamma mia.

So you agree there's a risk, then?

Not all companies issue new shares "all the time", prudent owners do it only when necessary. So here you're mandating imprudent behaviour.

[Beskar]

There is the age-old argument of Megacorporations where 30% is a controlling stake versus Mom&Pop stores.

Some rules affect Megacorporations and Mom&Pop stores differently. Differentiating them is also a tricky pickle too.

[Montmorency]

Not-so-breaking news: Labour confirms second referendum and green reform package.


Forced purchase, negotiated haircut, is the same as a purchase at a devalued price - just offset for "optics".

The implication here is that you're simply much more restrictive on the proper role of eminent domain than I am. For the briefest treatment of what's relevant here's what Wiki says: "In England and Wales, and other jurisdictions that follow the principles of English law, the related term compulsory purchase is used. The landowner is compensated with a price agreed or stipulated by an appropriate person. Where agreement on price cannot be achieved, the value of the taken land is determined by the Upper Tribunal." The state is always the final arbiter one way or another. There is no mandate to pay the owner their asking price. Is this system presumptively illegitimate? Insofar as the state can be permitted to overrule property claims, do you believe owners should always be paid their asking price and this never be negotiated downward? I don't. Leaving aside the real-world exigencies of our time, private property of this nature is an invention of the state, and the state shouldn't merely be an incestuous relationship of the propertied classes.


So you agree there's a risk, then?

Not all companies issue new shares "all the time", prudent owners do it only when necessary. So here you're mandating imprudent behaviour.


That depends on the needs of the company of course. Walmart (https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/WMT/walmart/shares-outstanding) has been retiring stocks continuously for years, from over 4 billion outstanding in 2006 to over 2.8 billion recently. Amazon (https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/shares-outstanding), meanwhile, has been slowly but steadily expanding, from over 400 million in 2006 to around half a billion lately (so, more than 1% a quarter typically).

Stock options are another way for shares to be introduced into circulation, which is why companies also report diluted earnings per share that are predicated on the scenario of all convertibles becoming new outstanding stock. FYI. All in all we should understand that legally mandated creation of shares according to a set timetable is unlikely to cause chaos - financial markets will simply adapt, just as they do when companies normally and individually issue new stock (which can happen on a day's notice, rather than years' as in the IOF plan).

Check this shit out:


Investors Get Stung Twice by Executives’ Lavish Pay Packages (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/business/investors-get-stung-twice-by-executives-lavish-pay-packages.html)

What they found: The average annual dilution among S.&P. 500 companies relating to executive pay was 2.5 percent of a company’s shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the costs of buying back shares to reduce that dilution equaled an average 1.6 percent of the outstanding shares. Added together, the shareholder costs of executive pay in the S.&P. 500 represented 4.1 percent of each company’s shares outstanding.


So investors take executive compensation in stride as it affects their equity stake ALL THE TIME, plus secondary offerings on zero notice, but a much smaller systematic transfer is economically and ideologically daft? Jog. On.

[Montmorency]

Come to think of it, those who assume that a mandatory 1% issuance of new equity by a company will result in devaluation of per share or dividends per share of existing stock by 1% are not necessarily right.

For the baseline we would have to assume that a company's self-directed secondary issuance of shares will lead to a static decrease in stock valuation proportional to the amount of new stock. I've been trying to find information on this point, but it just doesn't seem to work like that because markets and pricing are not static - they follow from the intuitions and expectations of the investors. In fact the expectation is often that equity will grow in value following an offering on account of growth potential or bullish spirit or whatever. For example in 2005 Google's (https://www.cfo.com/banking-capital-markets/2005/09/google-secondary-offering-raises-4b/) secondary offering "the stock had climbed 6.3 percent since the company announced plans to sell the additional shares, even though they will dilute current holdings." We must understand that changes in valuation are not static or linear and are probably unpredictable beyond a case-by-case basis. It is especially fallacious to assume that new stock somehow represents a static decline in long-term valuation.

Dividends: The companies' directors calculate dividends to be paid from earnings (profits) according to their own strategy; there is no precept to maintain the same payout ratio. If a company has been distributing a certain percentage of earnings across a certain number of shares annualized, then each year for 10 years as they add 1% to the IOF they can increase the payout ratio to prevent relative dividends dilution (not counting any matching for new standard or converted stock available on the market). Alternatively, if a company and its investors have not otherwise felt the need to stabilize dividends against standard shares growth, then why would investors hold it against them now? (As an example, Walmart (https://www.dividend.com/dividend-stocks/services/discount-variety-stores/wmt-wal-mart-stores/) has raised its dividend every year since it first offered them 40-ish years ago, and currently its payout ratio is 43.18%.)

Stock Price: As this (https://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/what-happens-to-the-share-price-when-new-shares-ar.aspx) page explains, the stock price is fundamentally linear to the market capitalization of the company. The actual price of a share is determined on the market, where it is bought and sold according to perceptions of the company's strength: e.g. its cash flow or subjective growth potential. It is true in abstract that since new stocks are generally offered for below the existing market price of shares, the immediate effect of selling new shares is to increase the market capitalization of the company on a lower per-share basis. In other words, the ratio of market cap to outstanding shares decreases in the immediate aftermath, which in theory would reduce the value of shares. However, as stated above the market does not stand still on prices making a linear equation unrepresentative.


Secondary offerings don't always result in dilution, especially if a company is particularly popular. Yet even the fear of potential dilution is often enough to send share prices downward, at least temporarily. Shareholders need to be wary of secondary offerings to make sure they don't see their existing holdings lose too much value.

What you might notice is that new issuance for the IOF is in effect a special category of shares: it is is never available on the market. If a share does not exist and cannot exist on the market, and its ownership is automatically locked in yet also does not add to or subtract from the capitalization of the company, then there is little reason I can see for the market to take this issuance into consideration in pricing shares of the company. This is doubly true when one remembers most stock-issuing companies would be affected in the exact same way at the exact same time - by law.

There is one caveat I can detect. While government-mandated locked-in stock issuance off the market should not affect the prices of the stocks directly, they can eventually affect them indirectly. The IOF plan requires IOF-held stock to be remunerated with dividends to workers in the form of cash. Because paying shareholders cash decreases the amount of cash available to the company, the act of paying dividends in itself can be said to act as a downward-pressure on stock. In practice companies are required to announce record dates on which dividends are paid, and in the window leading up to this date the company stock becomes a popular short buy from people who want to turn a profit by picking up the dividend check against the shares but don't want to hold on to the shares long-term. Therefore the stock price often increases comparable to dividend size leading up to the record date, but is then dumped following this date leading to a reversion (drop of stock price). There could conceivably be a discrete downward pressure from the paying of dividends against IOF shares that have no market presence or price yet extract money from the company. But the magnitude of this theoretical vector should resemble the typical effect of labor costs on a company's valuation, since IOF dividends are effectively just a labor cost. Investors traditionally don't like labor costs because they expect the company to transfer the value of labor from the laborers to the investors. This is a primary dynamic of the capitalist economy that leftists most heavily criticize and desire to disrupt!!!

So in fact any impact on company financials and financial markets from the IOF plan's dividends (as separated from the corporate income tax aspect since that's a different thing) must be categorically similar to legislative interventions such as the minimum wage, and any argument against leftists that their plans transfer value from capital to labor is bound to fail - that's the point of the intervention! The only real question is the effectiveness and efficiency of a proposal in achieving its goals compared to some other proposal. In that vein here are what I would consider interesting and relevant questions about the IOF plan:

Why combine a rise in ordinary corporate income tax (https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/9206) rate with collecting most of the dividends from the IOFs as a secondary hidden corporate tax (the vast majority of IOF capped dividends would flow to the government)? Why not consolidate the IOF as a workers' participation measure and apply any new corporate tax distinctly, and perhaps in collectible form through the issuance of special non-voting shares as per Dean Baker's proposal? A potentially easier way to accomplish the distinct goal of transferring more corporate money to workers could be to modify wage/employment law to require all applicable companies pay a bonus equal to 10% of dividends from UK profits, whether or not capped at £500. Also, Employee Ownership Trusts were introduced in 2014 but apparently haven't seen much uptake - could those structures be modified to achieve some of the employee ownership goals without mandatory transfers? Employee participation goals could in part be met by Labour's existing Germany-style codetermination proposal.

In the current IOF plan is there a mechanism for establishing IOFs at new companies? Of all questions this one is probably already answered - I'd bet on a continuing requirement to transfer 1% where applicable up to the 10% cap - but I can't recall locating what happens to companies that begin to fall into the criteria following the first tranche of IOF transfers. Without such a mechanism the full 10% IOF would only apply to companies that meet the criteria on the day of implementation and continue to meet the criteria for 10 years. Inversely, what happens to companies that fall below the employment threshold having already established an IOF?

What are the mechanisms for collective management of IOF within a company? Is governance participatory or delegatory? Is there an expectation for how IOF managers will participate in corporate governance? For instance, since the IOF is capped the IOF has neither ability or incentive to grow itself. What kind of decision-making are IOFs predicted to engage in?

Should workers be able to sell their stake in IOF, or to their entitlement to dividends from IOF? While a dividends cap cuts against inequality between workers, that most workers aren't covered by IOFs and there is lack of flexibility with respect to IOF rights in taking or leaving these jobs on the other hand increases inequality between workers.

What happens with companies that are already cooperatives or employee-owned? What about existing partially employee-owned companies? And large companies that don't pay dividends?

Does anything happen to existing individual employee stock in their own/other companies? What about convertible securities, stock options and warrants? Are C-suite and upper management employees covered by IOF?

When the plan mentions "workers" does that include only employees or contractors and temporary workers as well? The dividend structure seems problematic in application to workers of more detached categories; they don't have as much skin in as full employees, and anyway is there a risk their hiring/firing could be organized around record dates for payment of dividends?

Does the government have any ownership policies targeting all the many classes of workers who are not self-employed but still work for small/medium companies?

What are estimates of distortion effects around (above/below) the 250 worker threshold? How will subsidiaries be treated compared to branches?





I'm tired of learning about the UK, and I have to take time to familiarize myself with the below (https://ballotpedia.org/November_5,_2019_ballot_measures_in_New_York) local election issues by Tuesday so please take a few days to carefully consider any response.


Ballot Question 1, New York City Elections Charter Amendment: Ranked-Choice Voting, Vacancies, and City Council Redistricting Timeline On the ballot
A yes vote is a vote in favor of amending the city charter to do the following:
establish ranked-choice voting to be used for primary and special elections beginning in 2021;
increase the time between a city office vacancy and the special election to fill it from 45 days (60 for mayor) to 80 days; and
change the timeline for city council redistricting to complete it prior to city council nominating petition signature collection.

• Ballot Question 2, New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board Charter Amendment On the ballot
A yes vote is a vote in favor of amending the city charter to do the following:
add two members to the 13-member Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB)—one appointed by the Public Advocate and one jointly by the mayor and speaker of the council;
allow the city council to appoint members directly without the mayor having final appointing authority;
require the CCRB annual budget to be enough to hire employees for at least one CCRB for every 154 police officers (0.65% of the city's police force) unless the mayor determines that fiscal necessity prevents it;
add to the city charter the requirement that the city police commissioner to provide an explanation to the CCRB whenever the board's disciplinary recommendations aren't followed;
authorize the CCRB to investigate the truthfulness of statements made during its investigation of complaints; and
allow the CCRB to delegate its authority to issue and enforce subpoenas.

• Ballot Question 3, New York City Ethics and Government Charter Amendment On the ballot
A yes vote is a vote in favor of amending the city charter to do the following:
increase the amount of time after leaving service before elected city officials and senior appointed officials can appear before the city agencies in which they served from one year to two years;
replace two of five members of the Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB) appointed by the mayor with a member appointed by the comptroller and a member appointed by the public advocate;
prohibit members of the COIB from involvement with city office campaigns and restrict contributions from COIB members to campaigns to between $250 and $400 depending on the office;
add to the city charter a requirement that the Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprise (M/WBE) to report directly to the mayor and to require a mayoral office for the M/WBE; and
require city council confirmation of the city's corporation counsel appointed by the mayor.

• Ballot Question 4, New York City City Budget Charter Amendment: Revenue Stabilization Fund, Public Advocate and Borough President Budgets, and Reporting by Mayor On the ballot
A yes vote is a vote in favor of amending the city charter to do the following:
authorize a rainy day fund to go into effect with required state law changes;
set minimum Public Advocate and Borough President budgets based on the 2020 fiscal year adjusted based on inflation or the total change in the city's total budget;
move the deadline for the mayor's revenue report (excluding property taxes) to the city council from June 5 to April 26; and
set a deadline of 30 days for the mayor to submit changes to the city's financial plan requiring budget changes to the city council.

• Ballot Question 5, New York City Land Use Charter Amendment: Uniform Land Use Review Procedure Requirements On the ballot
A yes vote is a vote in favor of amending the city charter to do the following:
require the Department of City Planning (DCP) to provide a summary of Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) projects to the Borough President, Board and Community Board affected by the project 30 days prior to when the project application is certified for review by the public and
increase the amount of time allowed for review of the ULURP projects by the affected Community Boards from 60 days to either 75 days or 90 days, depending on timing.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Generics in the UK are already cheap; drugs that don't get NICE approval don't get used much. Manufacturers offer confidential discounts to get a green light. TEVA et al already have economies of scale for generics..

Billions has been spent on dementia. the trials haven't worked. Companies are trying, but they are failing. Antibiotics isn't a question of more molecules, it is down to the regulatory framework being adapted. Lots of antibiotics have been refused licences since they are not better than current gold standard, when in fact what the question should be is do they have any efficacy as once a drug is dumped that is basically it... Perhaps some effort to reuse these would be worthwhile.

~:smoking:

Sometimes I wonder how cheap people expect drugs to be. It's insanely expensive just to maintain the level of equipment and high quality precursors needed to produce molecules getting injected into bodies...

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Come to think of it, those who assume that a mandatory 1% issuance of new equity by a company will result in devaluation of per share or dividends per share of existing stock by 1% are not necessarily right.

For the baseline we would have to assume that a company's self-directed secondary issuance of shares will lead to a static decrease in stock valuation proportional to the amount of new stock. I've been trying to find information on this point, but it just doesn't seem to work like that because markets and pricing are not static - they follow from the intuitions and expectations of the investors. In fact the expectation is often that equity will grow in value following an offering on account of growth potential or bullish spirit or whatever. For example in 2005 Google's (https://www.cfo.com/banking-capital-markets/2005/09/google-secondary-offering-raises-4b/) secondary offering "the stock had climbed 6.3 percent since the company announced plans to sell the additional shares, even though they will dilute current holdings." We must understand that changes in valuation are not static or linear and are probably unpredictable beyond a case-by-case basis. It is especially fallacious to assume that new stock somehow represents a static decline in long-term valuation.

Dividends: The companies' directors calculate dividends to be paid from earnings (profits) according to their own strategy; there is no precept to maintain the same payout ratio. If a company has been distributing a certain percentage of earnings across a certain number of shares annualized, then each year for 10 years as they add 1% to the IOF they can increase the payout ratio to prevent relative dividends dilution (not counting any matching for new standard or converted stock available on the market). Alternatively, if a company and its investors have not otherwise felt the need to stabilize dividends against standard shares growth, then why would investors hold it against them now? (As an example, Walmart (https://www.dividend.com/dividend-stocks/services/discount-variety-stores/wmt-wal-mart-stores/) has raised its dividend every year since it first offered them 40-ish years ago, and currently its payout ratio is 43.18%.)

Stock Price: As this (https://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/what-happens-to-the-share-price-when-new-shares-ar.aspx) page explains, the stock price is fundamentally linear to the market capitalization of the company. The actual price of a share is determined on the market, where it is bought and sold according to perceptions of the company's strength: e.g. its cash flow or subjective growth potential. It is true in abstract that since new stocks are generally offered for below the existing market price of shares, the immediate effect of selling new shares is to increase the market capitalization of the company on a lower per-share basis. In other words, the ratio of market cap to outstanding shares decreases in the immediate aftermath, which in theory would reduce the value of shares. However, as stated above the market does not stand still on prices making a linear equation unrepresentative.



What you might notice is that new issuance for the IOF is in effect a special category of shares: it is is never available on the market. If a share does not exist and cannot exist on the market, and its ownership is automatically locked in yet also does not add to or subtract from the capitalization of the company, then there is little reason I can see for the market to take this issuance into consideration in pricing shares of the company. This is doubly true when one remembers most stock-issuing companies would be affected in the exact same way at the exact same time - by law.

There is one caveat I can detect. While government-mandated locked-in stock issuance off the market should not affect the prices of the stocks directly, they can eventually affect them indirectly. The IOF plan requires IOF-held stock to be remunerated with dividends to workers in the form of cash. Because paying shareholders cash decreases the amount of cash available to the company, the act of paying dividends in itself can be said to act as a downward-pressure on stock. In practice companies are required to announce record dates on which dividends are paid, and in the window leading up to this date the company stock becomes a popular short buy from people who want to turn a profit by picking up the dividend check against the shares but don't want to hold on to the shares long-term. Therefore the stock price often increases comparable to dividend size leading up to the record date, but is then dumped following this date leading to a reversion (drop of stock price). There could conceivably be a discrete downward pressure from the paying of dividends against IOF shares that have no market presence or price yet extract money from the company. But the magnitude of this theoretical vector should resemble the typical effect of labor costs on a company's valuation, since IOF dividends are effectively just a labor cost. Investors traditionally don't like labor costs because they expect the company to transfer the value of labor from the laborers to the investors. This is a primary dynamic of the capitalist economy that leftists most heavily criticize and desire to disrupt!!!

So in fact any impact on company financials and financial markets from the IOF plan's dividends (as separated from the corporate income tax aspect since that's a different thing) must be categorically similar to legislative interventions such as the minimum wage, and any argument against leftists that their plans transfer value from capital to labor is bound to fail - that's the point of the intervention! The only real question is the effectiveness and efficiency of a proposal in achieving its goals compared to some other proposal. In that vein here are what I would consider interesting and relevant questions about the IOF plan:

Why combine a rise in ordinary corporate income tax (https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/9206) rate with collecting most of the dividends from the IOFs as a secondary hidden corporate tax (the vast majority of IOF capped dividends would flow to the government)? Why not consolidate the IOF as a workers' participation measure and apply any new corporate tax distinctly, and perhaps in collectible form through the issuance of special non-voting shares as per Dean Baker's proposal? A potentially easier way to accomplish the distinct goal of transferring more corporate money to workers could be to modify wage/employment law to require all applicable companies pay a bonus equal to 10% of dividends from UK profits, whether or not capped at £500. Also, Employee Ownership Trusts were introduced in 2014 but apparently haven't seen much uptake - could those structures be modified to achieve some of the employee ownership goals without mandatory transfers? Employee participation goals could in part be met by Labour's existing Germany-style codetermination proposal.

In the current IOF plan is there a mechanism for establishing IOFs at new companies? Of all questions this one is probably already answered - I'd bet on a continuing requirement to transfer 1% where applicable up to the 10% cap - but I can't recall locating what happens to companies that begin to fall into the criteria following the first tranche of IOF transfers. Without such a mechanism the full 10% IOF would only apply to companies that meet the criteria on the day of implementation and continue to meet the criteria for 10 years. Inversely, what happens to companies that fall below the employment threshold having already established an IOF?

What are the mechanisms for collective management of IOF within a company? Is governance participatory or delegatory? Is there an expectation for how IOF managers will participate in corporate governance? For instance, since the IOF is capped the IOF has neither ability or incentive to grow itself. What kind of decision-making are IOFs predicted to engage in?

Should workers be able to sell their stake in IOF, or to their entitlement to dividends from IOF? While a dividends cap cuts against inequality between workers, that most workers aren't covered by IOFs and there is lack of flexibility with respect to IOF rights in taking or leaving these jobs on the other hand increases inequality between workers.

What happens with companies that are already cooperatives or employee-owned? What about existing partially employee-owned companies? And large companies that don't pay dividends?

Does anything happen to existing individual employee stock in their own/other companies? What about convertible securities, stock options and warrants? Are C-suite and upper management employees covered by IOF?

When the plan mentions "workers" does that include only employees or contractors and temporary workers as well? The dividend structure seems problematic in application to workers of more detached categories; they don't have as much skin in as full employees, and anyway is there a risk their hiring/firing could be organised around record dates for payment of dividends?

You're in favour of this preposal simply because it fits your ideology - the fact is it's still ill thought out.

Does the government have any ownership policies targeting all the many classes of workers who are not self-employed but still work for small/medium companies?

What are estimates of distortion effects around (above/below) the 250 worker threshold? How will subsidiaries be treated compared to branches?





I'm tired of learning about the UK, and I have to take time to familiarize myself with the below (https://ballotpedia.org/November_5,_2019_ballot_measures_in_New_York) local election issues by Tuesday so please take a few days to carefully consider any response.



This post is a smidge over 1500 words.

All of this can be summed up simply. Litt:

However you dress it up this is state seizure of property for the purposes of the state - even if that purpose is redistribution of wealth. This is fundamentally different to taxation because they are taking you money, not your property. In the UK there are already successful companies wholly own by their employees - the two most famous are the John Lewis Partnership and the Co-Operative group. One is a high-street retailer and grocer, the other is a banker, insurer and grocer.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Not-so-breaking news: Labour confirms second referendum and green reform package.

Yeah?

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2019/11/labours-brexit-policy-clear-shadow-cabinet-must-get-behind-it

"It will negotiate a deal which secures our political departure from the EU, while seeking to retain economic and social benefits that protect jobs and maintains standards, based on principles the Party has consistently advocated, including customs arrangements and frictionless trade with the single market.

There is little doubt that such a deal could be swiftly agreed with Brussels."

Is this not just as much a fantasy as the Tory starting position?


The implication here is that you're simply much more restrictive on the proper role of eminent domain than I am. For the briefest treatment of what's relevant here's what Wiki says: "In England and Wales, and other jurisdictions that follow the principles of English law, the related term compulsory purchase is used. The landowner is compensated with a price agreed or stipulated by an appropriate person. Where agreement on price cannot be achieved, the value of the taken land is determined by the Upper Tribunal." The state is always the final arbiter one way or another. There is no mandate to pay the owner their asking price. Is this system presumptively illegitimate? Insofar as the state can be permitted to overrule property claims, do you believe owners should always be paid their asking price and this never be negotiated downward? I don't. Leaving aside the real-world exigencies of our time, private property of this nature is an invention of the state, and the state shouldn't merely be an incestuous relationship of the propertied classes.

Labour has made compulsory purchases and forced compulsory mergers before - we no longer have a car industry because of it and all our defence contracts go through one megacorp.

In fact under certain circumstances allow for compulsory purchases - like during war or for necessary infrastructure. Rather like it's permissible to prorogue Parliament for a week before a new session but a gross overreach to do it for five weeks.


That depends on the needs of the company of course. Walmart (https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/WMT/walmart/shares-outstanding) has been retiring stocks continuously for years, from over 4 billion outstanding in 2006 to over 2.8 billion recently. Amazon (https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/shares-outstanding), meanwhile, has been slowly but steadily expanding, from over 400 million in 2006 to around half a billion lately (so, more than 1% a quarter typically).

Stock options are another way for shares to be introduced into circulation, which is why companies also report diluted earnings per share that are predicated on the scenario of all convertibles becoming new outstanding stock. FYI. All in all we should understand that legally mandated creation of shares according to a set timetable is unlikely to cause chaos - financial markets will simply adapt, just as they do when companies normally and individually issue new stock (which can happen on a day's notice, rather than years' as in the IOF plan).

Check this shit out:

So investors take executive compensation in stride as it affects their equity stake ALL THE TIME, plus secondary offerings on zero notice, but a much smaller systematic transfer is economically and ideologically daft? Jog. On.

Not the point - the point is that we're talking about government telling companies how to dispose of themselves - which always ends horribly.

[Montmorency]

Sometimes I wonder how cheap people expect drugs to be. It's insanely expensive just to maintain the level of equipment and high quality precursors needed to produce molecules getting injected into bodies...

https://gh.bmj.com/content/3/1/e000571


Introduction There are persistent gaps in access to affordable medicines. The WHO Model List of Essential Medicines (EML) includes medicines considered necessary for functional health systems.

Methods A generic price estimation formula was developed by reviewing published analyses of cost of production for medicines and assuming manufacture in India, which included costs of formulation, packaging, taxation and a 10% profit margin. Data on per-kilogram prices of active pharmaceutical ingredient exported from India were retrieved from an online database. Estimated prices were compared with the lowest globally available prices for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria medicines, and current prices in the UK, South Africa and India.

Results The estimation formula had good predictive accuracy for HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria medicines. Estimated generic prices ranged from US$0.01 to US$1.45 per unit, with most in the lower end of this range. Lowest available prices were greater than estimated generic prices for 214/277 (77%) comparable items in the UK, 142/212 (67%) in South Africa and 118/298 (40%) in India. Lowest available prices were more than three times above estimated generic price for 47% of cases compared in the UK and 22% in South Africa.

Conclusion A wide range of medicines in the EML can be profitably manufactured at very low cost. Most EML medicines are sold in the UK and South Africa at prices significantly higher than those estimated from production costs. Generic price estimation and international price comparisons could empower government price negotiations and support cost-effectiveness calculations.



Yeah?

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2019/11/labours-brexit-policy-clear-shadow-cabinet-must-get-behind-it

"It will negotiate a deal which secures our political departure from the EU, while seeking to retain economic and social benefits that protect jobs and maintains standards, based on principles the Party has consistently advocated, including customs arrangements and frictionless trade with the single market.

There is little doubt that such a deal could be swiftly agreed with Brussels."

Is this not just as much a fantasy as the Tory starting position?

Sure? As I've ranted in the Exit thread a couple times it would be less fantastical if Labour had adopted and been working on it since late 2018. Even better from an electoral POV had they explicitly positioned themselves as preparing the best plan to respect the wishes of either (broad) side regardless of the outcome of the referendum.

In other not-so-breaking news, I found out Sanders (https://berniesanders.com/issues/corporate-accountability-and-democracy/) had finally released the details of his employee ownership plan, and it seems to resemble Corbyn's but with double the fund cap, without the dividend cap, and perhaps a more robust criterion for what companies are included (revenue instead of employment figures). With his venturing beyond Corbyn's standar and his Green New Deal plan that includes bona fide nationalization, Sanders seems to finally be revealing his power level (which had previously hovered around "left-liberal").


Share Corporate Wealth with Workers. Under this plan, corporations with at least $100 million in annual revenue, corporations with at least $100 million in balance sheet total, and all publicly traded companies will be required to provide at least 2 percent of stock to their workers every year until the company is at least 20 percent owned by employees. This will be done through the issuing of new shares and the establishment of Democratic Employee Ownership Funds.
These funds will be under the control of a Board of Trustees directly elected by the workforce. Employees will be guaranteed payments from the funds equivalent to their shares of ownership as equal partners in the funds.
Workers will be guaranteed the right to vote the shares given to them through this plan. The funds will enjoy the same voting rights as any other institutional shareholder and their shares will not be permitted to be transferred or sold. Instead, they will be held permanently in trust for the workforce. Dividend payments will be made from the Funds directly to employees.
According to the most recent statistics, 56 million workers in over 22,000 companies in America would benefit under this plan.An estimate based on data from over 1,000 companies shows that directing 20 percent of dividends to workers could provide an average dividend payment of over $5,000 per worker every year.


Labour has made compulsory purchases and forced compulsory mergers before - we no longer have a car industry because of it and all our defence contracts go through one megacorp.

In fact under certain circumstances allow for compulsory purchases - like during war or for necessary infrastructure. Rather like it's permissible to prorogue Parliament for a week before a new session but a gross overreach to do it for five weeks.

There are two logical extremes here: The state has unlimited authority to adjust the valuation or ownership of property, or; the state has no authority to adjust the valuation or ownership of property. I doubt either of us falls on either extreme. A fair process, including price negotiation, is the key thing, not that the private owner or manager get whatever they want. Negotiation is formally a legitimate component of compulsory purchase; the contention is therefore only over the details of the process and compensation. I hope we can agree on that abstraction.

I will grant you one thing however, that Corbyn is arguably taking a less prudent approach than he could - as seen here (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/05/14/jeremy-corbyn-targets-national-grid-energy-nationalisation-plans/):


A leaked Labour party document has revealed plans for a swift and sweeping renationalisation of the country’s £62bn energy networks at a price decided by Parliament.

The blueprint, seen by the Telegraph, lays bare for the first time Mr Corbyn’s plan to bring all energy network companies under public ownership “immediately” following a Labour election win.

If by "immediately" what is meant is an immediate start to the process, that's fine, but if it refers to arriving at the result then that's too fast for proper process.

I've never heard of a legislature negotiating a price for nationalization - is that how it's been done in the UK in the past? I would assume the executive is normally responsible for such things, if pending on legislative approval. Corbyn, according to the Telegraph article, cities the Northern Rock nationalization as a precedent, but from Wiki the compensation there was worked out by an appointed arbitration panel, which sounds executive to me. Or is that the same as what is meant by "decided by Parliament?"

Hopefully something that will be clarified.


Not the point - the point is that we're talking about government telling companies how to dispose of themselves - which always ends horribly.

What do you think of the minimum wage, or commercial and standards regulations in general?

[a completely inoffensive name]

https://gh.bmj.com/content/3/1/e000571


Clarification: Proteins, anti-bodies and uncommon therapeutic molecules that haven't already been made for the past 50 years.

[plaguedemon]

I don't blame UK citizens for wanting to leave the EU. Merkel is insane and Germany runs the EU.

[Furunculus]

on why there exists a breakdown in loyalty between the labouring classes and the labour party:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7693435/JOHN-GRAY-working-class-deserting-Labour.html

tldr - the latter ceased to be interested in representing the aims and expectations of the former.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I don't blame UK citizens for wanting to leave the EU. Merkel is insane and Germany runs the EU.

I don't agree with her stance on all the issues, as might be obvious, but "insane?"

Unless her health concerns are the result of some neurological disorder that is harming her psyche as well.

[Greyblades]

Depends on the definition of insane, considering the extent of self destruction she brought to germany and the rest of europe through her decision to welcome the migration it might be called an act of madness.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Depends on the definition of insane, considering the extent of self destruction she brought to germany and the rest of europe through her decision to welcome the migration it might be called an act of madness.


Remind me which European economies are collapsing.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I don't blame UK citizens for wanting to leave the EU. Merkel is insane and Germany runs the EU.

In 5 years, you will likely be saying the same about Macron and France.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Remind me which European economies are collapsing.

Germany?

[Greyblades]

Remind me which European economies are collapsing.

Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain to France, Germany and Sweden. AKA the places that got invaded first to the welfare states those invaders ended up in.

Lot of europeans learning how open borders overwhelm services and depress wages, thus swelling a nations costs and inflaming societal tensions.

The more conspirital among us could infer that such was the intended effect.


In 5 years, you will likely be saying the same about Macron and France.
I think the yellow vests have been saying something much like that, every weekend, for the last 12 months.

[Idaho]

Germany?

Collapsing? What a quarter where economic growth stalls is a collapse? That's like saying when I put my car in neutral I have destroyed my car.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

It is one of those days where I shake my head and smile...as I agree with Idaho. Not common for us.

Economic downturns are part of the normal ebb and flow of an economy. I agree with Idaho that it is a little premature to label that as "collapsing." May get there of course, but calling it that already is a bit much.


'Blades, I have to disagree with your labelling them "invaders." That label implies a more programmatic effort than has been experienced by Europe. The human waves experienced have been the result of horrible conditions elsewhere and the rational choices of many individuals to say "F that, I am outta here." I do agree with you as to how the open borders result in strains on economies, especially those with the best social welfare support for non-citizens. Ending up there is ALSO the rational choice for the refugee. While I don't think it to be any more programmatic than I do ants finding their way to spilled sugar in my pantry, it does not mean that the impact on the host economies of all these added persons is any less.

[Pannonian]

It is one of those days where I shake my head and smile...as I agree with Idaho. Not common for us.

Economic downturns are part of the normal ebb and flow of an economy. I agree with Idaho that it is a little premature to label that as "collapsing." May get there of course, but calling it that already is a bit much.


'Blades, I have to disagree with your labelling them "invaders." That label implies a more programmatic effort than has been experienced by Europe. The human waves experienced have been the result of horrible conditions elsewhere and the rational choices of many individuals to say "F that, I am outta here." I do agree with you as to how the open borders result in strains on economies, especially those with the best social welfare support for non-citizens. Ending up there is ALSO the rational choice for the refugee. While I don't think it to be any more programmatic than I do ants finding their way to spilled sugar in my pantry, it does not mean that the impact on the host economies of all these added persons is any less.

Funny how these "invaded" countries want to remain in the EU, while the UK, which is one of the least affected, wants out. It's a bit like how cities with high immigration don't see a problem with such (hello London), while areas with the least immigration see the country swamped by immigrants.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Funny how these "invaded" countries want to remain in the EU, while the UK, which is one of the least affected, wants out. It's a bit like how cities with high immigration don't see a problem with such (hello London), while areas with the least immigration see the country swamped by immigrants.

City-mouse v Country-mouse, Pan.' A common co-cultural difference in virtually all cultures, with the Country-mice almost inevitably being more conservative in outlook than their urbane cousins.

[Greyblades]

They are an unwanted influx of people who disregard national boundaries and lack a uniting reason or even origin, let alone the lie that those welcoming thier arrival has tried to perpetuate of them all being middle east refugees.

The reality is that the majority are economically motivated migrants seeking a better life in lands to which they have no right to and those who had claim to refugee status discarded it when they decided to keep going despite reaching the safety of nations bordering or proximate to thier place of origin.

An invasion is an appropriate descriptor.

[Greyblades]

Vis the uk, there was active efforts to foist them on us and our lack of impact was directly down to westminster telling brussels to piss off.

I suspect you can consider that clusterfuck in calais as one of the candidate events that pushed brexit over the line. I wouldnt bo sure about the desire to remain being a permanent fixture what with the resurgeance of nationalism in europe, this being a major reason why.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Collapsing? What a quarter where economic growth stalls is a collapse? That's like saying when I put my car in neutral I have destroyed my car.

I was being flippant - nonetheless, Germany's economy has been slowly stagnating and the Chancellor is losing control.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I was being flippant - nonetheless, Germany's economy has been slowly stagnating and the Chancellor is losing control.

Indeed. Germany is facing a downturn and Merkel does not seem to be at the top of her game.

[Montmorency]

Social pathologies of the old country.




BREAKING (https://twitter.com/Keeptheban_/status/1476227890371043340):

It has been reported that PC Laura Hughes of Wiltshire Police (Aka Laura Jordan) who turned her back as violent hunt supporters assaulted peaceful anti-hunt protestors in Lacock on Monday, is a fully paid up member of the Avon Vale Hunt.



People in shock over BBC’s choice of interviewee following Maxwell verdict (https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/people-in-shock-over-bbcs-choice-of-interviewee-following-maxwell-verdict-306450/)

...Alan Dershowitz

https://i.imgur.com/ER0u6Pv.jpg

(Unlike the riffraff Maxwell trafficked in)


https://i.imgur.com/675BhCQ.jpg

[Pannonian]

At a key point in the pandemic, the government signed a £107 million deal to buy PPE from a NI sweet company. Lyndsey Telford investigates what happened next, and how a box of kit that cost the taxpayer £1,000 came to be sold for just a fiver.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0012ljx/spotlight-covid-contracts-hunting-for-ppe


CLANDEBOYE AGENCIES LTD
Nature of business (SIC)
46360 - Wholesale of sugar and chocolate and sugar confectionery


https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/NI617785


250 x Fluid Repellent PE Gowns Disposable Blue Surgical Sleeve Thumb Loop PPE
Buy 1
£95.00 each

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/403296785253?hash=item5de65c9365:g:CKkAAOSwugVhvY1g

Why are they in government?

[rory_20_uk]

The Civil Service organises these logistics.
Politicians were giving their associates contracts.

~:smoking:

[Pannonian]

Anyone here voting Conservative in the next election?

[Pannonian]

The Civil Service organises these logistics.
Politicians were giving their associates contracts.

~:smoking:

Oh, and don't blame the civil service for the actions of the elected government. Such as when the civil servants balked at awarding a 200m contract to a company with no relevant track record, only to be overruled when a Tory peer, who was married to a director of said company, went to the elected government to demand an explanation.

[Pannonian]

Liz Truss overruled officials to demand they approve a £1,400 lunch with a foreign diplomat at a Tory donor’s struggling gentlemen’s club.

The foreign secretary spent hundreds of pounds on wine and gin alone during the meal in Mayfair last summer. She “explicitly asked” to use the venue, “refused to consider anywhere else” and even rejected a cheaper and less party political option as “inappropriate”, according to official correspondence.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/liz-truss-wants-to-lunch-and-only-a-tory-donors-place-will-do-z0gq8pknc

Damn those meddling civil servants, and damn public funds.

[Furunculus]

Anyone here voting Conservative in the next election?

I have voted Lib-Dem dem in 2017, may well do so again if the tories persist in showing a lack of 'grip'.

Fingers crossed we're fully acceded to CPTPP by then, as it will limit the amount of damage any newcomers can do in the following parliament.

[Pannonian]

I have voted Lib-Dem dem in 2017, may well do so again if the tories persist in showing a lack of 'grip'.

Fingers crossed we're fully acceded to CPTPP by then, as it will limit the amount of damage any newcomers can do in the following parliament.

What do you mean by damage?