The News

Topic

Discuss anything Huey Lewis related in this thread.

Replies

Bump!

Christian wrote:

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

I think meat will stay around in some form, maybe as more of an exclusive product only the rich can afford to eat regularly. With the plebs eating the crickets and mealworms and pink ooze. Funny that the left is going along with this when they used to be about giving poor people better lives.

What’s the alternative, though, to your mind? Keep the poor’s ability to eat meat at the expense of future generations, and especially the poor of those generations? Or banning meat for everybody equally, so the rich don’t get any? (I might be down with the latter. Price doesn’t have to play a role in these things. You could have a system of meat rations, where there’s a clear limit to the meat a person is allowed to eat in a year. That’d be fairer than regulating by price.)

Well any solution that does not involve telling other people how to eat.

 

The wife of a friend of mine is in a farming cooperative people can subscribe to – I think they also become partial owners – where they work with respect for nature and animals and people know where their food comes from. I think the government should stimulate these types of alternatives, where people take some measure of control of the food production and get more choice in what is produced, and how. I guess it can’t cover for everybody’s daily food intake, but I think it’s a step in the right direction.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Christian, DavidM

[DavidM]

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

What’s the alternative, though, to your mind? Keep the poor’s ability to eat meat at the expense of future generations, and especially the poor of those generations? Or banning meat for everybody equally, so the rich don’t get any?

We could try banning rich people?

 

(Sorry, I think the attribution went wrong, Christian wrote that, not Arjan.)

 

• This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by DavidM.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Christian, lorcan_nagle

We could also kill everyone. Every problem is caused by people. No people = no problem.

1 user thanked author for this post.

DavidM

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Well any solution that does not involve telling other people how to eat.

Is cannibalism acceptable in your opinion?

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

We could also kill everyone. Every problem is caused by people. No people = no problem.

What are you, a Texas teenager?!

2 users thanked author for this post.

Ben, lorcan_nagle

garjones wrote:

The more meat you eat the more land is turned over to both their grazing land and crops to feed them. The less land used for farming the more we can turn over to wilding and biodiversity which supplies the vast majority of our medicines.

There are 15 million sheep in the UK which live on land which is physically unsuited to crops. Hills that you can’t plough, and moorlands where the soil doesn’t support anything other than low-quality grass that’s only fit for sheep to eat.

So maybe lamb and mutton can be exempt from the meat ban?

 

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Is cannibalism acceptable in your opinion?

Only of free range, organic fed, humanely slaughtered humans.

2 users thanked author for this post.

njerry, Todd

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Is cannibalism acceptable in your opinion?

Only of free range, organic fed, humanely slaughtered humans.

Well, it’s clear now how much you value human life.

Likewise, you don’t give a shit about people’s lives and happiness, you just want to tell them what to do.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Likewise, you don’t give a shit about people’s lives and happiness, you just want to tell them what to do.

Telling Dutch people that genocide and cannibalism is bad is Authoritarian now.

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Likewise, you don’t give a shit about people’s lives and happiness, you just want to tell them what to do.

Telling Dutch people that genocide and cannibalism is bad is Authoritarian now.

 

Genocide? What the fuck are you talking about now?

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

We could also kill everyone. Every problem is caused by people. No people = no problem.

Oh, this must have been the other person called Arjan Dirkse on here. My apologies

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

We could also kill everyone. Every problem is caused by people. No people = no problem.

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

We could also kill everyone. Every problem is caused by people. No people = no problem.

Oh, this must have been the other person called Arjan Dirkse on here. My apologies

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

We could also kill everyone. Every problem is caused by people. No people = no problem.

Jesus Christ, did you take that seriously? Fuck off you humourless cunt.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

We could also kill everyone. Every problem is caused by people. No people = no problem.

Oh, this must have been the other person called Arjan Dirkse on here. My apologies

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

We could also kill everyone. Every problem is caused by people. No people = no problem.

Jesus Christ, did you take that seriously? Fuck off you humourless cunt.

So you were serious about the cannibalism then?

You asked me wether I condoned cannibalism. I thought the question was so absurd, it didn’t deserve a serious answer. So yes, I joked.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

You asked me wether I condoned cannibalism. I thought the question was so absurd, it didn’t deserve a serious answer. So yes, I joked.

See, that’s the problem because you’re “you shouldn’t control what people eat” point is absurd in and of itself because then it ultimately leads to condoning cannibalism. So I honestly can’t tell at this point where your arguments go from serious to jokes.

Oh sure,

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Oh sure,

Right, so your argument is actually that the morality of what people eat is your morality then. So get off your high horse about wanting to control other people’s lives.

I think most people, except a few psychos, condemn cannibalism. In 99, 999999999999999999999999999999 % of all cases encounters between human beings don’t end in cannibalism, and when it happens it is univerally condemned, and punished ( except by those psychos). So it’s self evident cannibalism is frowned upon and not condoned.

 

So when I say “don’t control what people eat” i think people hearing that don’t assume I condone cannibalism, that common sense rules that out. I see your point of course, if we have a taboo against cannibalism why not a taboo against other forms of consumption that can have damaging effects, like eating meat, or anything that damages the environment. I think that’s a complicated question, which examines our role in the world and responsibility, maybe the biggest question there is. But pushing a certain diet on people doesn’t sit right with me.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

I think most people, except a few psychos, condemn cannibalism. In 99, 999999999999999999999999999999 % of all cases encounters between human beings don’t end in cannibalism, and when it happens it is univerally condemned, and punished ( except by those psychos). So it’s self evident cannibalism is frowned upon and not condoned.

 

So when I say “don’t control what people eat” i think people hearing that don’t assume I condone cannibalism, that common sense rules that out. I see your point of course, if we have a taboo against cannibalism why not a taboo against other forms of consumption that can have damaging effects, like eating meat, or anything that damages the environment. I think that’s a complicated question, which examines our role in the world and responsibility, maybe the biggest question there is. But pushing a certain diet on people doesn’t sit right with me.

The problem is that your argument can be used to defend cannibalism, or something less taboo but also frowned upon like eating veal or other foods that are considered cruel to prepare. And my default position is that if it doesn’t do harm, it should be fine to do – and for the most part I include eating meat in general in that maxim. But – we are fast approaching a crunch point in climate change, and the harsh reality is that our current mode of consumption is unsustainable. Now, there are massive inefficiencies in the food industry that could be fixed before we need to make radical changes, but it’s more profitable not to fix them so we can’t rely on corporations or governments to do the right thing.

Pushing a certain diet may not sit right with you, but that won’t matter a whit when the land we’re currently using for farming becomes barren or is needed for other, more important uses in 20 years time because of ecological collapse.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Christian

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Well any solution that does not involve telling other people how to eat.

Is cannibalism acceptable in your opinion?

Well, now you’re making me hungry.

Todd wrote:

Well, now you’re making me hungry.

I agree with Lorcan that there is no reasonable way to rely on economic or political power to preemptively prepare for any eventuality. Even the argument that changing one’s diet would have immediate health benefits is likely to go unheeded.

Food Industry Reform Needed In U.S. : NPR

The doctor can tell a person that she will have a heart attack if she doesn’t change her diet, but there really be no voluntary changes until the heart attack happens, and even then, who is willing to lay real money that the person will change in the long term? Most people will cheat even if their lives are on the line.

Not that beyond meat or impossible meat is any healthier, but it is a less environmentally impactful poison than the poison people willingly consume in mass quantities. The health effects are just as bad, but the carbon footprint is – theoretically – much less. Again, it is not easy to really calculate environmental impact as the environment is an innately complex and unpredictable system. No single measure can provide enough information to be practical.

This is the repetitive nature of human history. We’re making mistakes all the time – often the same mistakes – and then a crisis occurs and the solution to that crisis is to stand by until the people most vulnerable to the catastrophe either die or survive and then the leaders that emerge declare that we’re in recovery and try to take the credit for it.

Even autocratic governments can’t completely control their populations and they certainly aren’t interested in joining other governments in dealing with any global problem. Even though there is never going to be a single solution that can be applied to every part of the world, there will need to be some cooperation and governments are not good at that. Corporations are intrinsically opposed to it – unless. by cooperation we mean that one imaginary legal fiction metaphorically devours a different one in the innocuous ideal of the merger (I had a “merger” with a Chicken Caesar wrapp and potato chips/crisps for lunch).

So, material reality – the predicted catastrophe – will need to manifest to supply the will for actual confrontation with it, and until then, any hope of preemptive action would have to be persuasive to the majority of common people (all of us, essentially) over or before any coercive model – even excluding the ethical consideration – because coercion and even regulation is unlikely to emerge.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

The wife of a friend of mine is in a farming cooperative people can subscribe to – I think they also become partial owners – where they work with respect for nature and animals and people know where their food comes from. I think the government should stimulate these types of alternatives, where people take some measure of control of the food production and get more choice in what is produced, and how. I guess it can’t cover for everybody’s daily food intake, but I think it’s a step in the right direction.

Yup. So would be subsidising organic and responsible farming instead of just subsidising all farmers regardless and simply doing it by size of the farmland (the latter is what the EU is currently doing). But, you know, stimulating alternatives probably would mean making those less expensive and the “conventional” (that is, insane) way of doing things that we are using now more expensive.
Or in other words… exerting a form of control over what people eat?

Apart from all the weird escalation upthread, Lorcan is completely right though. You can refuse to exert any checks and influence on what people are eating for the next twenty years or so, but that would lead to far worse things. And preventing catastrophes should be pretty high up on a responsible politician’s list of priorities.

1 user thanked author for this post.

lorcan_nagle

Maybe this is too simplistic, but what is the difference between a cow grown to be turned into steaks and an ear of corn grown to be used as food?

The cow has never known any other type of life so it is not being tortured and mistreated. Its awareness is restricted to the activities it has experienced. While PETA or other organizations can scream and protest that the animal is being mistreated, it does not know any better and costs to treat feed cows better would raise the cost of the meat that it would turn into and reduce availability so, like people upthread have said, should we reserve meat to be eaten by the rich only or treat it like other food sources and allow it to be eaten b a wider variety of people.

WORK ANIMALS ARE NOT PETS.

Man… That back and forth was intense. Even more intense than me and…

Anyway, a few things. I always like Steven VanZant from his Sun City album to his radio show highlighting experimental music. and the Sopranos.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

Rocket wrote:

Maybe this is too simplistic, but what is the difference between a cow grown to be turned into steaks and an ear of corn grown to be used as food?

The cow has never known any other type of life so it is not being tortured and mistreated. Its awareness is restricted to the activities it has experienced. While PETA or other organizations can scream and protest that the animal is being mistreated, it does not know any better and costs to treat feed cows better would raise the cost of the meat that it would turn into and reduce availability so, like people upthread have said, should we reserve meat to be eaten by the rich only or treat it like other food sources and allow it to be eaten b a wider variety of people.

WORK ANIMALS ARE NOT PETS.

So I’m not the best person to make the arguments as I’m not a vegan, but I am married to one so I’ve heard a lot of the talking points. And the major thing is that the primary argument against eating meat is ethical rather than practical.

While animals that are bred for food aren’t self aware enough to know that they’re being bred for food, but they do have emotions and can feel fear and sadness and loneliness and such. And the conditions that animals are kept in on farms would be considered somewhere between criminal negligence and torture of we did them to humans, even leaving aside the whole killing them at the end.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Sean Robinson

Rocket wrote:

While PETA or other organizations can scream and protest that the animal is being mistreated, it does not know any better

I think if you take a closer look at how exactly animals are treated and killed, “not knowing better” can’t be the justification for torturing a living being to this extent. I don’t think any of us would stand for this if we had to watch it every day. Those animals may not be pets, but we are humans.

That being said, that’s not even the discussion we were originally having here. We were mainly talking about farm livestock’s contribution to climate change (well, and the fact that it has high costs in resources in general.) Livestock are responsible for 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gases. This means milk is as problematic, by the way, and will also have to go the way of the dodo sooner or later.

1 user thanked author for this post.

lorcan_nagle

And transportation is the source of another 14%, which means that eventually we’re all going to have to stay in our walking-distance bubble communities and conduct all of our affairs remotely. We’re not there yet, of course, but the last two years have shown it’s possible. And the sooner we do it (ban all personal vehicular transport), the better for the planet.

Yeah, quite possibly. More probably though it’ll be a mix of digital remote working, personal vehicle transport with electric cars, and public transport.

Germany is currently doing a bit of an experiment: as a sort of reaction to the rising fuel prices, the government has decided to create, for the 3 months of June/July/August, a public transport ticket that costs 9€ for a month and that you can use in any busses, subways, short-distance trains etc. And it’s valid everywhere, which means that you can travel through the whole of Germany provided you avoid the long-distance trains and invest a little (well, or a lot) more time.

We’ll see how things go; I’m hoping this will be so massively popular it’ll force politics into creating a similar but long-term solution. Making public transport affordable (and massively cheaper than personal vehicular transport) would be the greatest instant leap in reducing car traffic that we could make, in my opinion.

1 user thanked author for this post.

DavidM

I read about that. As a heavy public transport user, I obviously think it sounds like a great idea. I’m surprised any government would be willing to swallow the cost, though.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Christian

A big elephant in the room are GMOs. There is such a resistance to them but they could positively transform agriculture in regards to food production, environmental impact, and as a tool to help fight climate change.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Christian

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

The wife of a friend of mine is in a farming cooperative people can subscribe to – I think they also become partial owners – where they work with respect for nature and animals and people know where their food comes from. I think the government should stimulate these types of alternatives, where people take some measure of control of the food production and get more choice in what is produced, and how.

To go back to the original podcast that started this discussion.

One of the main points of difference made by Monbiot is the organically fed meat solution sounds very nice but is no longer scalable and uses more land usage and has a higher carbon footprint than conventional farming. If the US for example switched to all organic it would use up every piece of land available in the country. Veganism alone isn’t a solution because the sources of protein in that diet are very damaging, soya planting being a major cause of deforestation, almonds causing the water table shortages in California.

While he’s more forceful than me in saying ‘meat farming must end’, the interesting thing is that ‘forcing’ or government control of what we eat was never actually mentioned in this discussion. My take was that I have eaten meat replacement products like chicken schnitzel and burger patties and they taste just as good. I couldn’t give an exact percentage but my observation that most meat the world consumes is relatively cheap and processed, it’s burgers, nuggets, sandwich fillings, fried chicken etc. It’s only price and availability really preventing me and many others switching entirely to that. If just fast food chains switched it would cause a massive decrease in beef farming.

Where government could come in to the equation is redirecting the subsidies we have now to the most environmentally sustainable options. It’s not as if subsidy now doesn’t already manipulate which crops are grown, which livestock reared and what the overall diets of most of us that don’t have an unlimited budget.

3 users thanked author for this post.

Ben, lorcan_nagle

DavidM wrote:

There are 15 million sheep in the UK which live on land which is physically unsuited to crops. Hills that you can’t plough, and moorlands where the soil doesn’t support anything other than low-quality grass that’s only fit for sheep to eat. So maybe lamb and mutton can be exempt from the meat ban?

On sheep farming, it is in some ways better, it’s often kinder because there isn’t really a ‘factory’ solution used yet so sheep mostly roam around as they fancy. It does a lot 0f the time use moorland that isn’t much use for anything else.

The issues are that while many are grazing on hills and moors they aren’t fully. A quick train ride through the countryside in Wales and the west will show a lot of sheep on normal farmland. The hills are also an issue because the UK basically went through a process of almost entire deforestation.   The rolling green hills of South Wales are beautiful but not a natural  feature, they are woodlands stripped bare centuries ago. So on a micro level choosing lamb for Sunday lunch instead of beef is a less damaging choice but it isn’t scalable globally.

4 users thanked author for this post.

Ben, DavidM, lorcan_nagle

DavidM wrote:

I read about that. As a heavy public transport user, I obviously think it sounds like a great idea. I’m surprised any government would be willing to swallow the cost, though.

One measure to offset the cost could be by stopping to subsidise transport by car. Make everybody pay for the fucking Autobahn instead.

It’s a weird thing though, what governments are willing to pay for. Universities are free in Germany; that’s unthinkable in the UK or in the US, but it’s a matter of course here. Converserly, in the UK, the public museums are free of charge, which isn’t the case in Germany and feels like a massive luxury, seen from the outside.

I think (nearly) free public transport would be an incredible improvement in quality of life for pretty much everybody. Well worth the cost.

5 users thanked author for this post.

Ben, lorcan_nagle, Todd, DavidM

[Rocket]

lorcan_nagle wrote:

And the conditions that animals are kept in on farms would be considered somewhere between criminal negligence and torture of we did them to humans

I was taking the fact that basic treatment was occurring as a given and that enforcement of laws ensuring those basic conditions was taking place. So I am against any type of torture taking place.

As far as ethical treatment goes, different people have different ethics. For me, I look with disdain at most people who treat pets as pseudochildren so getting me to care about the feelings of something destined to be a steak is a big stretch. This may seem a bit harsh but I was not treated well as a child and a young adult so my development has been tilted a bit sociopathic in that I care less about a person the further removed from me they become.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Rocket.

Christian wrote:

One measure to offset the cost could be by stopping to subsidise transport by car. Make everybody pay for the fucking Autobahn instead.

This is always a fascinating factor we overlook. By all logic maintaining a train system, which conveys hundreds of people with one track, one driver, should be cheaper by economies of scale. Our road/fuel tax doesn’t actually cover all road costs which is why local authorities across the western world vary in upkeep. Los Angeles is technically rich but their roads are a disgrace.

It’s similar with energy, I actually don’t have a blanket view that nuclear is bad, it’s not the greatest sustainable source but it is better than coal and gas when it comes to climate change. My issue with it is that it’s incredibly expensive and has only been sold as otherwise by gigantic government subsidy.

The Hinckley C plant planned in the UK is the most expensive man made structure in the history of the world and will deliver power at double the cost of current wind power. While the argument is fair that both wind and solar are to a degree unreliable because yield varies with weather conditions they have cancelled every single project looked at tidal energy which is as reliable as anything can be, it has been going in and out twice a day for millennia with zero deviation. At the same time they have signed off £78 billion to decommission just one nuclear plant. That sum could have insulated every home in the UK to reduce their energy requirements by at least 25%.

5 users thanked author for this post.

Martin Smith, DavidM, Ben, Christian

With the voting situation and having fickle voters on one side, we get this tweet which is somewhat indicative of other places:

 

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

Damn, maybe the Democrats should give young people a reason to vote for them then.

3 users thanked author for this post.

Todd

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Damn, maybe the Democrats should give young people a reason to vote for them then.

From Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail by Hunter S Thompson:

3 users thanked author for this post.

Christian, Todd, lorcan_nagle

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Damn, maybe the Democrats should give young people a reason to vote for them then.

I get that…and don’t get me wrong… I am none too crazy about the Dems.

It is the lack of awareness, no sense of urgency at all. Then when these retiree voters become the determining factor
and that side wins. Then come some laws that the young ones don’t really like. But who really is to blame? Those who were
fickle.

I said this before concerning 2016. Being so wishy washy about Hilary was part of what got you know who in power. And he was in the position to put in four to the Supreme Court. Now there is this outrage about RoevWade possibly being overturned…
The whole thing is a mess, starting with the fickle voters.

Al-x wrote:

But who really is to blame?

The Democrats are to blame. Simple as that.

Al-x wrote:

I said this before concerning 2016. Being so wishy washy about Hilary was part of what got you know who in power. And he was in the position to put in four to the Supreme Court. Now there is this outrage about RoevWade possibly being overturned…
The whole thing is a mess, starting with the fickle voters.

Or maybe Clinton shouldn’t have run in the first place. Maybe she shouldn’t have put resources into getting Trump onto the Republican ticket assuming he’d be an easy win. Maybe she should have done things to appeal to left-wing voters instead of assuming they’d vote for her because have you seen the other guy?

5 users thanked author for this post.

Martin Smith, njerry, Todd

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Al-x wrote:

But who really is to blame?

The Democrats are to blame. Simple as that.

Al-x wrote:

I said this before concerning 2016. Being so wishy washy about Hilary was part of what got you know who in power. And he was in the position to put in four to the Supreme Court. Now there is this outrage about RoevWade possibly being overturned…
The whole thing is a mess, starting with the fickle voters.

Or maybe Clinton shouldn’t have run in the first place. Maybe she shouldn’t have put resources into getting Trump onto the Republican ticket assuming he’d be an easy win. Maybe she should have done things to appeal to left-wing voters instead of assuming they’d vote for her because have you seen the other guy?

This is going to sound harsh and cruel but maybe Biden should have sucked up his grief over the death of his son and run for office anyway in 2016. Use that grief to fuel him and very cynically, exploit the death for sympathy and votes. He still had the Obama glow and I truly believe he would have easily gotten the Democratic nomination. I think he would have decisively beat Trump.

At that point, Trump probably would have followed his original plan and started his own news channel. And Biden would currently be in his second term as I don’t think the Republicans could have mustered someone strong enough to beat him in 2020. Hilary may have held a cabinet post again after losing the nomination in 2016, or just finally accepted that nobody wants her as POTUS and retired to the lecture circuit.

If only Biden had run in 2016…

1 user thanked author for this post.

Al-x

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Maybe she should have done things to appeal to left-wing voters instead of assuming they’d vote for her because have you seen the other guy?

That is part of it.

I would agree…

Dems do take their constituents for granted. I know they take the minority votes that way.

You stress the miscalculation of the Dems and their strategy.

I partly emphasize those who want to vote for someone “who they can have a beer with” in a pub. (Some determining factor that is.)

It can be both.

Todd wrote:

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Al-x wrote:

But who really is to blame?

The Democrats are to blame. Simple as that.

Al-x wrote:

I said this before concerning 2016. Being so wishy washy about Hilary was part of what got you know who in power. And he was in the position to put in four to the Supreme Court. Now there is this outrage about RoevWade possibly being overturned…
The whole thing is a mess, starting with the fickle voters.

Or maybe Clinton shouldn’t have run in the first place. Maybe she shouldn’t have put resources into getting Trump onto the Republican ticket assuming he’d be an easy win. Maybe she should have done things to appeal to left-wing voters instead of assuming they’d vote for her because have you seen the other guy?

This is going to sound harsh and cruel but maybe Biden should have sucked up his grief over the death of his son and run for office anyway in 2016. Use that grief to fuel him and very cynically, exploit the death for sympathy and votes. He still had the Obama glow and I truly believe he would have easily gotten the Democratic nomination. I think he would have decisively beat Trump.

At that point, Trump probably would have followed his original plan and started his own news channel. And Biden would currently be in his second term as I don’t think the Republicans could have mustered someone strong enough to beat him in 2020. Hilary may have held a cabinet post again after losing the nomination in 2016, or just finally accepted that nobody wants her as POTUS and retired to the lecture circuit.

If only Biden had run in 2016…

Interesting take, but he would still be a centrist shitfuck who could get absolutely nothing done.

3 users thanked author for this post.

Martin Smith, Todd, lorcan_nagle

Anonymous wrote:

Todd wrote:

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Al-x wrote:

But who really is to blame?

The Democrats are to blame. Simple as that.

Al-x wrote:

I said this before concerning 2016. Being so wishy washy about Hilary was part of what got you know who in power. And he was in the position to put in four to the Supreme Court. Now there is this outrage about RoevWade possibly being overturned…
The whole thing is a mess, starting with the fickle voters.

Or maybe Clinton shouldn’t have run in the first place. Maybe she shouldn’t have put resources into getting Trump onto the Republican ticket assuming he’d be an easy win. Maybe she should have done things to appeal to left-wing voters instead of assuming they’d vote for her because have you seen the other guy?

This is going to sound harsh and cruel but maybe Biden should have sucked up his grief over the death of his son and run for office anyway in 2016. Use that grief to fuel him and very cynically, exploit the death for sympathy and votes. He still had the Obama glow and I truly believe he would have easily gotten the Democratic nomination. I think he would have decisively beat Trump.

At that point, Trump probably would have followed his original plan and started his own news channel. And Biden would currently be in his second term as I don’t think the Republicans could have mustered someone strong enough to beat him in 2020. Hilary may have held a cabinet post again after losing the nomination in 2016, or just finally accepted that nobody wants her as POTUS and retired to the lecture circuit.

If only Biden had run in 2016…

Interesting take, but he would still be a centrist shitfuck who could get absolutely nothing done.

I don’t disagree. But I would take Biden over Trump any day, especially when it came to the Supreme Court.

Of the absolute shit choices the Democrats gave me in the 2016 primaries, I voted for Bernie.

2 users thanked author for this post.

lorcan_nagle

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Al-x wrote:

But who really is to blame?

The Democrats are to blame. Simple as that.

Al-x wrote:

I said this before concerning 2016. Being so wishy washy about Hilary was part of what got you know who in power. And he was in the position to put in four to the Supreme Court. Now there is this outrage about RoevWade possibly being overturned…
The whole thing is a mess, starting with the fickle voters.

Or maybe Clinton shouldn’t have run in the first place. Maybe she shouldn’t have put resources into getting Trump onto the Republican ticket assuming he’d be an easy win. Maybe she should have done things to appeal to left-wing voters instead of assuming they’d vote for her because have you seen the other guy?

While I won’t argue that Democrats are generally a disappointment, I think voters also do deserve to be lambasted a bit. Because voter turnout in the country is just awful. Especially in primaries. And for all the complaints about Dems not offering good candidates, well, the place you’re most likely to find progressives is in the primaries. But they rarely make it out of the primaries because no one shows up to vote for them. So it’s a bit of a catch 22. Progressives don’t vote because they don’t see enough progressive candidates and Dems don’t run more progressive candidates because young progressives are the least reliable voting demographic. To expect the political party to be the one to break the mold isn’t realistic to me. So change needs to start with young progressives swallowing their pride and showing up in force at every single election.

Let’s take 2016 as an example. You had Bernie and Hillary. By most accounts, Bernie speaks to what young progressives in the country want. Yet primary turnout in 2016 was 28% total (meaning GOP and Dem primaries combined). For all the talk of Hillary shouldn’t have run and the DNC had some conspiracy to screw Bernie…nobody showed up to vote. If all the alleged Bernie supporters had actually showed up in the 2016 primaries, he could have easily won despite whatever efforts existed to help Hillary win. Fact of the matter is, most of the people in the 2016 general election who refused to vote for Hillary because they were Bernie supporters who felt he got screwed probably didn’t show up to vote for Bernie when they had the chance. Same in 2020. And this is all much worse in midterm primaries. 30% turnout is a good number during a presidential year in primaries. In midterms some places probably get half of that. And the voters most likely to show up for primaries? Older more moderate/conservative voters. So of course we end up with more conservative candidates in the general elections. If progressives want to push through electoral change then they need to show up to every single election, specifically to the primaries where progressive candidates are most likely to exist and need the most help. Don’t just talk the talk.

I also think the narrative that the Dems, as a whole party, are useless is unfair and a bit toxic. Why? Well, the House has passed dozens of bills in the last 18 months that progressives want. The For the People Act, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, Statehood for DC, the George Floyd Police reform act, several gun control bills, Build Back Better, etc. The House is doing their job and trying to deliver on a lot of things. Yet voters are going to punish them based on the actions of 50 GOP senators and 2 Dem senators. And then any hope of achieving anything at all dies. Simple fact is the votes don’t exist in the senate to do much of anything. Doesn’t matter if it’s Biden, Bernie, Warren, Obama or Jesus himself.

Showing up to vote for the most liberal candidate available is really the only recourse if we want to see any chance of change. Because the other option is just to fall backwards into fascism at this point. Those are basically our only two options in the US.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand voter frustration, but abstaining from voting because you don’t like either candidate just gives us the worst candidate possible that sets us back decades. If we want to force electoral change then it’s going to be a hard, slow process. Because that’s government and politics basically everywhere. The Civil Rights act took 100 years after the end of the civil war. Women first officially had a convention on women’s rights back in 1848. It took more than 70 years after that to get the vote. Gay marriage was federally outlawed officially in 1996. Took nearly 20 years to untangle that. Marijuana is still illegal at a federal level for no real reason anymore. Only voting in general elections every 4 years just won’t get the job done any quicker. And these days, I think it’s proven that it could end the chances for generations.

4 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, DavidM, lorcan_nagle

A long posting there and I agree with a lot of it.

The original posting was about the situation in LA, where the retirees are in full force and the young people are rather nonchalant about it.

The thing is… you can’t cry and whine now over something that is really your fault because when you had your chance to avert it but did basically nothing.

Crying about RoevWade now and how the SCOTUS is loaded with conservatives now when it is really your fault for not being that alert from the start

It is a situation of not being so alert, and also expecting the minority vote to compensate and cover for you in the voting booths. As for Biden, keep in mind that it was Stacy Abrams grassroots movement and going door to door to bring in the black vote that really swung Georgia to Biden. In fact, it took Georgia by surprise to the point that they changed the voting laws down to giving people on line a bottle of water! They won’t let that happen again.

As for Stacy, she might have made a better VP than Kamala, but Kamala was lighter skinned and appealed more to the public. I mean, if Biden passes away during his run, all eyes will be on Kamala.

 

Al-x wrote:

As for Stacy, she might have made a better VP than Kamala, but Kamala was lighter skinned and appealed more to the public. I mean, if Biden passes away during his run, all eyes will be on Kamala.

Just out of curiosity, why do you refer to the male by his last name and the two females by their first names?

4 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, lorcan_nagle, Arjan Dirkse

njerry wrote:

Just out of curiosity, why do you refer to the male by his last name and the two females by their first names?

Because any good female has their husbands surname and we can’t hold their husbands accountable for their conduct (unfortunately, dang I miss the good old days).

Jokes aside, I think we all know why.

[garjones]

To be fair to Al I think there is often a random element as to which name we latch onto with politicians. In the UK at least we have had ‘Maggie’ and ‘Boris’ used frequently for PMs but never ‘Theresa’ and ‘Tony’, they were always May and Blair.

I feel a lot of people do say ‘Kamala’ over ‘Harris’ but not ‘Elizabeth’ over ‘Warren’. We’ll tend to get Bernie versus Biden too.

Politicians that like to be known by 3 names often fall over into initials. FDR, JFK or AOC equally.

It’s a very interesting area because right now in the UK it is very much felt that getting the first name identifier is actually a bonus. There’s an active campaign to stop the media calling Johnson ‘Boris’ because that first name familiarity segues into the ‘I’d have a drink with’ territory.

In most, but not all cases (Maggie is a far more common name than Thatcher) people do grab onto the more unusual one that stands out. ‘Mayor Pete’ may be an exception as his surname is very hard to spell or pronounce so you are on safer ground not to mess it up. Even for the ‘bad guys’ we aren’t consistent – we’ll default to Saddam and Putin – that again may be the least common option as there are a lot of Vladimir and Hussein’s around the world.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by garjones.

1 user thanked author for this post.

DavidM

[Al-x]

njerry wrote:

Al-x wrote:

As for Stacy, she might have made a better VP than Kamala, but Kamala was lighter skinned and appealed more to the public. I mean, if Biden passes away during his run, all eyes will be on Kamala.

Just out of curiosity, why do you refer to the male by his last name and the two females by their first names?

I was typing fast and rushing things.

What now? A two page tangent on that getting further and further away from the original point?

Do you really want to judge me? YOU?!?

It happens and I think we all know why.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by Al-x.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

Just saw something on Twitter. @jacowboy has it really been snowing in Mexico City in June?

garjones wrote:

…has it really been snowing in Mexico City in June?

Meanwhile, about 2,000km to the north, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas were suffering extreme heat at the same time.

Thank GOD there’s no climate change, eh?

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

njerry wrote:

Thank GOD there’s no climate change, eh?

3 users thanked author for this post.

Rocket, njerry, Todd

Larry Nassar loses last appeal in sexual assault scandal

A lot of young women can breathe easily.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/what-changes-after-supreme-court-decision-in-ny-gun-case/3746436/

“The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a New York gun permit law that effectively will allow more people to legally carry guns on the streets of the country’s largest cities, including the five boroughs of New York City and other major metros.”

So basically, instead of being stabbed in the street or subway by someone who is mentally unstable, you can now be shot by them.
And now it will be that much easier.

Marvin Gaye sang “What’s going on?” back in the 60s… Now it is WTF?

Al-x wrote:

So basically, instead of being stabbed in the street or subway by someone who is mentally unstable, you can now be shot by them.
And now it will be that much easier.

But you’ll die knowing that you are in Bret Kavanagh’s thoughts and prayers, so…

2 users thanked author for this post.

Al-x, Todd

njerry wrote:

But you’ll die knowing that you are in Bret Kavanagh’s thoughts and prayers, so…

Such a comforting thought

There is a big piece missing on why some GOP look and sound so … compromised.

Almost like “Stepford Wives” material…

Some tweets although I only wish more action can be taken than just street marches, and witty soundbites posted.

 

Al-x wrote:

There is a big piece missing on why some GOP look and sound so … compromised.

They’re doing what they’ve been doing since forever. The strategy of basing their election campaigns on single-issue voters (guns, abortion, white supremacy) has been their big success formula since Reagan’s days. Reagan was the first president pushed by the NRA after its reconstruction by Harlon Carter as a white supremacist/gun fundemantalist lobbying group and he was the first president pushed by the Christian right after Jerry Falwell and his Moral Majority movement regeared it into an anti-abortion lobbying machine. The development of these two groups at that time is what fucked American politics forever, basically.

4 users thanked author for this post.

DavidM, Al-x, Todd, lorcan_nagle

There was a terrorist attack in Oslo in a gay bar, right before the pride parade was supposed to take place. Two dead, twenty wounded.

 

Oslo shooting: Norway attack being treated as Islamist terrorism, police say – BBC News

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

The world makes me very tired today.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Al-x, Todd

[Al-x]

I would like to take this moment to remind you how much Kathleen Parker sucks at her job. pic.twitter.com/TsY8eYoCwJ

— Soledad O'Brien (@soledadobrien) June 24, 2022

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by Al-x.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

Government analyzes elimination of daylight saving time – Mexico Daily News

President says harm to people’s health outweighs economic benefits

The practice of changing clocks twice a year at the start and end of daylight saving time could soon become a thing of the past.

President López Obrador said Wednesday that there is a good chance that the controversial custom will be terminated this year.

“We have an inquiry open to make a decision and they already delivered the documents and we’re going to disclose them to you because the savings [generated by daylight saving time] are minimal and the harm to health is considerable,” he told reporters at his morning news conference.

López Obrador, a longtime critic of daylight saving time – first introduced in Mexico in 1996 – said that a study completed by the Energy Ministry in conjunction with the Health Ministry and the Federal Electricity Commission concluded that daylight saving time generates savings of about 1 billion pesos (US $50.8 million) a year across Mexico.

“The conclusion is that the damage to health is greater than the importance of economic savings,” he said.

A 2021 study by the National Autonomous University’s Faculty of Medicine found that the twice-yearly time change can cause or aggravate flu, drowsiness, eating and digestive disorders and headaches, among other problems.

“It’s proven that health is harmed,” López Obrador said, adding that the decision on whether to eliminate daylight saving time or not will ultimately be dictated by what people want.

“Remember, [to govern] is to command by obeying. In other words if we see that there is majority support one way or the other no consultation” would be needed, López Obrador said, apparently referring to a referendum on the issue.

“We could measure [public support] with a survey, without the need for a consultation,” he said.

Later on Wednesday, the government released a Health Ministry report that advocated eliminating the practice.

“Why should we abolish summer time? The first thing we must consider is that the choice to have summer time is political and can therefore be changed,” it said. “… If we want to improve our health we mustn’t fight against our biological clock. It is advisable to return to standard time.”

The report attributed a range of ailments to summer time including biological, psycho-emotional and social disorders, drowsiness, irritability, and attention span, concentration and memory problems. It also said the observance of daylight saving time can increase people’s appetites at night, cause fatigue and diminish performance at work and school.

It takes adults up to seven days to adapt to a time change, while children take even longer, the Health Ministry report said.

“Some studies suggest an association between summer time and an increase in the occurrence of heart attacks, especially in the first week after being implemented,” it said.

“The time change alters the time … [people are] exposed to the sun and upsets our biological clock. The desynchronization with the environment alters our internal temporal order, causing physical and mental problems, and these problems arise more often in the days following a time change.”

Good for them! Hopefully it happens, then the rest of North America follows suit.

I don’t understand the problem with daylight savings time. Sure it’s a bit of hassle setting the clocks that don’t set themselves (particularly my wristwatch) but it takes five seconds to adapt to it. What I don’t understand is that there is a massive health issue for missing/gaining an hours sleep one day per year. If this was such a huge problem as it’s made out to be, travel between time zones should incur much, much worse problems for people and it would be done as sparingly as possible.

Humans are, above all perhaps, very adaptable to their environmental conditions. I really, really, don’t see the problem.

1 user thanked author for this post.

DavidM

If you are as far south as Mexico does it make that much difference? In northern Europe I get the need to manipulate daylight hours as there as so few of them in winter. Checking online it says they get 13 hrs daylight at summer solstice and 11 hrs at winter solstice. Hardly seems worth the effort implementing it.

1 user thanked author for this post.

[Al-x]

These US shootings are blurring together. That is how frequent.

Anyway…. This one on July 4th in Highland Park.

If you want, you can look up the guy who did it, and find out his whole background.

Personally, I stopped dropping my jaw 20 years ago and very little surprises me these days.

 

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by Al-x.

Al-x wrote:

These US shootings are blurring together. That is how frequent. Anyway…. This one on July 4th in Highland Park. If you want, you can look up the guy who did it, and find out his whole background.

I tend to feel that offering killers that kind of interest just gives them what they are looking for, in terms of attention and infamy.

Far better to give your attention and sympathy to the victims and their families. Ignore the murderers, I couldn’t care less who they are.

2 users thanked author for this post.

njerry

Dave wrote:

I tend to feel that offering killers that kind of interest just gives them what they are looking for, in terms of attention and infamy. Far better to give your attention and sympathy to the victims and their families. Ignore the murderers, I couldn’t care less who they are. 2 users thanked author for this post.

In this thread, the discussion has always been about the “shocking” backgrounds of shooters, the responses of GOPers, the blatant hypsocrisy and to so on.

Now you “tend to feel that offering killers that kind of interest just gives them what they are looking for, in terms of attention and infamy. Far better to give your attention and sympathy to the victims and their families.”

 

Al-x wrote:

In this thread, the discussion has always been about the “shocking” backgrounds of shooters, the responses of GOPers, the blatant hypsocrisy and to so on. Now you “tend to feel that offering killers that kind of interest just gives them what they are looking for, in terms of attention and infamy. Far better to give your attention and sympathy to the victims and their families.”

What are you talking about? When have I ever posted about the shocking backgrounds of shooters in the past? I’m not interested in that stuff and I think it shouldn’t be given the oxygen by the media.

This is a great video that often springs to mind when this topic comes up.

1 user thanked author for this post.

lorcan_nagle

[Al-x]

Dave wrote:

What are you talking about? When have I ever posted about the shocking backgrounds of shooters in the past? I’m not interested in that stuff and I think it shouldn’t be given the oxygen by the media.

“In this thread, the discussion….” with regards to the thread postings by members on the whole. Not you specifically.

Come to consider it: my first posting was addressing how “viral” the info on the guy’s background is just 2 days afterwards.

I agree that it is “to give your attention and sympathy to the victims and their families” , and not just “thoughts and prayers. and as

the commentator said in that YT video back in ’09 the danger of saturating the media leading to possible imitation.

 

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by Al-x.

If that’s what you were going for Al, then don’t specifically quote Dave in your post.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Dave

Al-x wrote:

“In this thread, the discussion….” with regards to the thread postings by members on the whole. Not you specifically.

So what is the point you are making by contrasting things other people might have said in the past with what I said today? I am a little bit lost here.

Ben wrote:

If that’s what you were going for Al, then don’t specifically quote Dave in your post.

I see now. Agreed.

It is just that my observation on how “viral” everything has gotten was not about my personal interest in the shooter.

It is no longer surprising to get so much info so soon.

 

Al-x wrote:

It is just that my observation on how “viral” everything has gotten was not about my personal interest in the shooter. It is no longer surprising to get so much info so soon.

Ah, I think you might have read my response to you as being somehow personal when it was intended as general. I think people should be directing their interest and attention elsewhere.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Ben, Al-x

There we go!

Sooner or later, we both get there!

2 users thanked author for this post.

Ben, Dave

I think the problem might be that its a big internet out there, no shortage of info but it’s hard to know which bits you have in mind with only a general reference.  And that’s without adding in the US aspects that aren’t so obvious to those viewing from outside.

Meanwhile, the news over here is currently dominated by a very fast moving, full-on political crisis.  One that is becoming rather scary.  How much sense it makes outside of the UK I have no idea.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Al-x

1 user thanked author for this post.

Al-x

Ben wrote:

Meanwhile, the news over here is currently dominated by a very fast moving, full-on political crisis. One that is becoming rather scary. How much sense it makes outside of the UK I have no idea.

We’ve been sitting around the breakfast table talking about how the British government works (or doesn’t work), and the consensus is that it doesn’t make sense. You vote for a party, and the senior members of the winning party decide who to put into 10 Downing Street, is that about it?

And now Boris has resigned, but is still PM?

I need to do more reading…

4 users thanked author for this post.

DavidM, Todd, Ben, Al-x

Yep. And the whole thing relies on the individual being “honourable”.  Yes, you can immediately see the problem here.

In contrast to all the checks on the US Presidency, which Trump still tried to break, there are zero on the British PM.  It is what has made recent events so much more dangerous.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

Ben wrote:

Yep. And the whole thing relies on the individual being “honourable”.  Yes, you can immediately see the problem here.

In contrast to all the checks on the US Presidency, which Trump still tried to break, there are zero on the British PM.  It is what has made recent events so much more dangerous.

Is there any impetus to actually change things? Or is like, “The sytem is broken, so let’s smash it a bit more. Maybe that’ll fix it.”?

1 user thanked author for this post.

Ben

Todd wrote:

Ben wrote:

Yep. And the whole thing relies on the individual being “honourable”.  Yes, you can immediately see the problem here.

In contrast to all the checks on the US Presidency, which Trump still tried to break, there are zero on the British PM.  It is what has made recent events so much more dangerous.

Is there any impetus to actually change things? Or is like, “The sytem is broken, so let’s smash it a bit more. Maybe that’ll fix it.”?

The only real attempt to shake up the system was the Alternative Vote referendum, which wouldn’t change the parliamentary system but would have made it easier to have more parties in the house of commons.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

Todd wrote:

Ben wrote:

Yep. And the whole thing relies on the individual being “honourable”.  Yes, you can immediately see the problem here.

In contrast to all the checks on the US Presidency, which Trump still tried to break, there are zero on the British PM.  It is what has made recent events so much more dangerous.

Is there any impetus to actually change things? Or is like, “The sytem is broken, so let’s smash it a bit more. Maybe that’ll fix it.”?

Depends on who you talk to.

A decade ago there was a vote on changing it but it failed.  Would it be different now? Hard to say.

There is a demand for Parliament to change.  To be more open to working mothers and parents. To deal with its too lenient line on MP treatment of their staff and the reported sexual assaults.  A smart and committed opposition should do much on this to pressure the government and Parliament.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

Ben wrote:

In contrast to all the checks on the US Presidency, which Trump still tried to break, there are zero on the British PM.

And yet the US system almost broke after less than 250 years, ours has been going much longer than that and only just hit a similar problem.

njerry wrote:

You vote for a party, and the senior members of the winning party decide who to put into 10 Downing Street, is that about it?

Yup. The thing to fully grasp is a parliamentary system technically nobody votes for the Prime Minister. They vote for a local MP from a party, the party decides who is nominated as PM.

So while Ben is correct that the system lacks many of the checks and balances of the US Presidential system what it does have, as we’ve seen this week, is a much easier path to kick out a bad leader.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Ben

garjones wrote:

what it does have, as we’ve seen this week, is a much easier path to kick out a bad leader.

And what it also has (as we saw with May and Johnson and as we’ll see again in the coming weeks) is a path to let a political party that is in power install whoever they want as prime minister, without the public getting any say in it.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Ben

Dave wrote:

garjones wrote:

what it does have, as we’ve seen this week, is a much easier path to kick out a bad leader.

And what it also has (as we saw with May and Johnson and as we’ll see again in the coming weeks) is a path to let a political party that is in power install whoever they want as prime minister, without the public getting any say in it.

Oh, America is descending into total authoritarianism, they’ll get up to speed soon.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

Dave wrote:

And what it also has (as we saw with May and Johnson and as we’ll see again in the coming weeks) is a path to let a political party that is in power install whoever they want as prime minister, without the public getting any say in it.

Sure but to the point I made to Jerry, the system doesn’t democratically elect a PM at all, even if it gives a greater illusion of that during a GE.

I think we’ve increasingly tried to be sold a presidential idea. Like today Johnson talking about ‘his’ mandate and that it was a bad time to ‘change the government’. The government isn’t changing, the leader is.

2 users thanked author for this post.

DavidM, Ben

garjones wrote:

Sure but to the point I made to Jerry, the system doesn’t democratically elect a PM at all, even if it gives a greater illusion of that during a GE.

You see this claim trotted out quite frequently in political interviews (especially when defending the installation of a new PM in circumstances like this), but I’d argue that it isn’t quite as clean cut a separation as that.

A party’s leadership will often colour a person’s vote for their individual local MP – and rightly so, because they know that voting in that MP is adding to the overall numbers and giving support for that party leader to build a majority and form a government.

To suggest that a person is only electing a local MP when they participate in a general election is ignoring the effect that the resulting overall makeup of the house of commons has on government and, ultimately, the country’s leadership.

It’s tempting to see these things as binary positions, but really there are so many different models of electoral system that you can’t argue that only a presidential style direct vote constitutes a vote for a country’s leader. The UK style of general election might not be a direct national vote for the prime minister but voting choices are not completely disconnected from the party leadership either.

2 users thanked author for this post.

DavidM, Ben

I think I pretty much alluded to that in the way it is approached presidentially. Yes lots of people vote specifically with a PM in mind. It’s just that’s not how the system was devised.

It does leave a democratic deficit to a degree, it’s hard to argue, but equally it shares that with the gap between manifesto and reality. Johnson said he’d build 40 hospitals and Trump would build a border wall and get Mexico to pay for it. Neither came close to happening.

You could demand each new leader calls a general election to allay that but then we get back to the issue today, because under those circumstances Johnson would not need to resign as no Tory wants a general election. Yes it is far from binary.

 

2 users thanked author for this post.

Dave, Ben

DavidM wrote:

Ben wrote:

In contrast to all the checks on the US Presidency, which Trump still tried to break, there are zero on the British PM.

And yet the US system almost broke after less than 250 years, ours has been going much longer than that and only just hit a similar problem.

The common factor in both is a politician whose entire reason to be in power is to wreck the system they are to run.

But Johnson’s fatal overreach and arrogance isn’t without UK precedent either.  Thatcher with the Poll Tax, Blair with Iraq, all three with massive Parliamentary majorities that they thought made them immune to, well, anything.

Turns out that a UK PM can get away with a hell of a lot, but if they keep pushing it, there is a limit.

2 users thanked author for this post.

DavidM, Dave

garjones wrote:

I think I pretty much alluded to that in the way it is approached presidentially. Yes lots of people vote specifically with a PM in mind. It’s just that’s not how the system was devised.

It does leave a democratic deficit to a degree, it’s hard to argue, but equally it shares that with the gap between manifesto and reality. Johnson said he’d build 40 hospitals and Trump would build a border wall and get Mexico to pay for it. Neither came close to happening.

You could demand each new leader calls a general election to allay that but then we get back to the issue today, because under those circumstances Johnson would not need to resign as no Tory wants a general election. Yes it is far from binary.

 

I guess really the question is to what extent there is a distinction between the government, the party, and the party leader.

The truth is the boundaries are not solid, the government is obviously pulled in a certain direction by the leader, the leader is often as concerned with the health of the party as with the country or government, and the approach towards governing the entire country can end up being dictated by fairly narrow personal or party attitudes.

I mean, we’ve essentially had almost a decade now of the major political decisions of the UK being largely coloured by how individual party leaders choose to try and deal with internal tory divisions. Which is all fairly far removed from individual constituency choices of MP but obviously all flows from that.

It is a large part the way of the system. I watched a brief video earlier and it ended on the question of who was the last PM to win the role and lost it at a general election.

It’s going a long way back.

Johnson, won after resignation, resigned.

May won after resignation, resigned.

Cameron won in election, resigned.

Brown won after resignation, lost at election.

Blair won at election, resigned.

Major won at resignation, lost at election.

Thatcher won at election, resigned.

That’s my living memory since I was 6 years old in 1979. It’d need some Wiki research I’m too lazy to do right now to get the actual answer and I suspect with all the hung parliament stuff in the 1970s it could go back over 60 years.

(To be fair Brown is the only one of that lot that didn’t win a general election ,and he probably would have if he hadn’t chickened out in 2007, and his reign was brief. )

 

 

1 user thanked author for this post.

Dave

In theory the PM doesn’t actually get to say what laws will be passed. He can propose laws — but so can any other Member — but nothing gets passed without a majority vote in Parliament. Meaning that, in theory, the PM has no more power than any single backbencher.

In practice, there seems to be an awful lot of loopholes in that theory.

I did check Wiki, the last PM to start and end that role by GE votes was Ted Heath – 1970 – 1974

1 user thanked author for this post.

DavidM

garjones wrote:

I did check Wiki, the last PM to start and end that role by GE votes was Ted Heath – 1970 – 1974

I didn’t know that, but my memory only goes back to Thatcher too. It’s an interesting fact to quiz people with.