Yes. exactly.
Thin blue line’s gun sketch incomming. Just read MP not getting a gun lic.
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Rowan Atkinson has been in a couple of fantastic series. Think Black Adder (series IV in particular) is my favourite!
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If you could find a way to ban second jobs, make the House of Commons a 9-5, four day a week workplace, get the expenses under control, enforce lobbying rules, and empower the HR equivalent to crack down on problem behaviour, that in itself would go a long way to getting rid of the arseholes.
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On my travels a repeated thing I heard, with ref to your post, and you’re right on those changes, but a lot of folk say to me democracy is a great idea, it just doesn’t work because its so hard to get the right actions implemented, and if you do, only a slither of what was proposed makes it.
Why doesn’t it work? It’s been the system of the two most successful countries in the world in the last three centuries.
Successful for who?
Like it or not, the US and UK have dominated the world economy between them since the eighteenth century. That’s changing, but it has been the case until now.
Dictatorships have come and gone in Germany, Russia, China and other countries in that time, but they have all failed.
The idea that democracy doesn’t work is clearly wrong.
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The democratic institutions of both those countries have just experienced charlatans running amok and perverting democracy to their own benefit. Democracy is the least worst system but there is room for improvement.
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Its not my point, but worth discussion, as in it was put to me a few times by others, on the basis that whatever idea to implement into law becomes conceived, it always becomes moderated downward by the time its implemented. This isn’t a quotient thing, its qualitative, That laws proposed by the Executive, are more or less, compromised between the conception and expression in law. I think ‘work’ is an unfair word to use, because the slippage, insofar as I can see, is 'inefficiency;. Where confined to law making.
Contrast communitarianism and that has high efficiency in its law making. Yet outwardly the converse is true, democracy is far more useful, and communitarianism less so.
The point arise for discussion because we were criticising people’e behaviour,that its ironic, most PMs come in and tell you what they are going to do, I dont think do they state enough that citizens need to cooperate more, and usually acquire some self discipline. So it was proposed in this sense dictators or kings are more useful. Right. But still, its a valid criticism of democracy and we can monitor it now, because Starmer is coming in with lots of changes which will require new laws. Bet they get diluted, shaved given the light touch in places. I think this is a real problem for democracy. You can’t always get good ideas into effect.
I still think democracy is the best system. But its best expressions are European, rather than UK/US.
Personally, I think it depends on your majority. Blair got a 179 seat majority, and as far as I was concerned that a clear mandate for a radical change he never delivered.
If the polls are correct that Starmer is possibly looking at double that, then he has to think big. He has the mandate to reshape the country however he wants.
The biggest restraints on Starmer are likely to be the lack of money at his disposal, and his own natural cautiousness.
Democracy, like science, is a system which acknowledges its imperfections. It is permanently in a state of flux, striving to better itself. It will never be perfect, just as science will never know all the answers, but that’s exactly what makes it superior to those absolutist systems which believe that they have the ultimate answer.
It’s facing grave threats right now and may disappear completely for a while, it’s happened before, but it will be back in some form or another.
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And yet Laura K is all over the ‘polls can be deceiving’ narrative…
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That’s why I think he has to prioritise. He has one term to articulate and achieve key milestones and deliverables so he can win a 2nd term to continue longer term projects. I hear plenty of British friends complaining about housing, public health and crime. So those, especially the first two, are where he should focus. Public health aside, I always feel it’s ridiculous that any first world government cannot build affordable reasonable quality housing. To me it’s usually a lack of will rather than resources. If a fully government funded project is not possible, then let it be a private-public funded project where the corporation has to fulfill KPIs for the housing project.
Housing situation is chronic as is the law on residential tenancies, dead right @gasband a first world government should have this nailed down. Tories dodged it for 10yrs for some reason. And we still have no fault evictions, which are so cruel.
I think the is right, or at least, a broader majority makes it more likely your Bills will get through unscathed. Then its wisdom to judge and courage to act, as to what the electorate want and what you can get away with. Perhaps with oratory, the main challenge of politics. Didnt know that about wankstain Blair. World security situation is going to impact heavily on what can be achieved in the short term.
Forgot to add taxi for Laura to my list above.
I was hunting for a local story on twitter (a rare thing) when this showed up. I don’t know the whole story but….
https://x.com/recusant_raja/status/1797169610925498495?s=46&t=OQ6N9bHrXqbJMKmFZJ79DA
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Why wasn’t she awarded a Tory ticket? Serious question.
It got a bit farther than Corbyn’s our friends ‘Hamas and Hezbollah’ 