Americanisation of British Politics

[Zhivago]

First we had the introduction of televised debates, now we have Downing Street's new 'White-house style' press briefing room.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... efing-room

From a taste point of view - it's hideous in my opinion, why not keep nice wood paneling? Probably the blue is so they can create an association between the nation and the conservative party. Would have liked to see all flags of the UK there also instead of 4 union flags.

Boris 'Born in the USA' Johnson is really ruining this once great country. yada yada.

[Digby]

Boris 'Born in the USA' Johnson is really ruining this once great country. yada yada.

When was it great? Why isn't it better than that now?

[Zhivago]

Boris 'Born in the USA' Johnson is really ruining this once great country. yada yada.

When was it great? Why isn't it better than that now?

#sarcasm. yada yada

[Digby]

Boris 'Born in the USA' Johnson is really ruining this once great country. yada yada.

When was it great? Why isn't it better than that now?

#sarcasm. yada yada

It's your observation he's ruining a once great country, so no it's not sarcasm, or at least not s specifically intended one, what's your point of comparison or was it just a vacuous aside?

[Zhivago]

When was it great? Why isn't it better than that now?

#sarcasm. yada yada

It's your observation he's ruining a once great country, so no it's not sarcasm, or at least not s specifically intended one, what's your point of comparison or was it just a vacuous aside?

I used it for ironic effect, if you can't understand that, I don't care.

[Puja]

I wouldn't actually mind American-style politics *if* we had an American system. As things stand, we've got a British system where you are supposed to vote for your local MP to represent your local area and then those MPs conclave in Parliament and select one from their number to be Prime Minister and vote on every issue based on their local area and their own beliefs, and we've then overlaid Yankee voting for a leader of the country and decisions all on party line.

Puja

[Digby]

#sarcasm. yada yada

It's your observation he's ruining a once great country, so no it's not sarcasm, or at least not s specifically intended one, what's your point of comparison or was it just a vacuous aside?

I used it for ironic effect, if you can't understand that, I don't care.

More Americanisation?

Or should that be Americanization?

[Zhivago]

It's your observation he's ruining a once great country, so no it's not sarcasm, or at least not s specifically intended one, what's your point of comparison or was it just a vacuous aside?

I used it for ironic effect, if you can't understand that, I don't care.

More Americanisation?

Or should that be Americanization?

I could care less [sic]

[morepork]

Stop doing English wrong.

[Digby]

It worked for Hemingway

[Donny osmond]

I wouldn't actually mind American-style politics *if* we had an American system. As things stand, we've got a British system where you are supposed to vote for your local MP to represent your local area and then those MPs conclave in Parliament and select one from their number to be Prime Minister and vote on every issue based on their local area and their own beliefs, and we've then overlaid Yankee voting for a leader of the country and decisions all on party line.

Puja

i agree, altho i'd say it's gone even further and people vote for or agin personalities as much as party line

[Sandydragon]

I wouldn't actually mind American-style politics *if* we had an American system. As things stand, we've got a British system where you are supposed to vote for your local MP to represent your local area and then those MPs conclave in Parliament and select one from their number to be Prime Minister and vote on every issue based on their local area and their own beliefs, and we've then overlaid Yankee voting for a leader of the country and decisions all on party line.

Puja

Yup. Our system is set up on the basis of local people voting for a local representative. The media and politicians treat it as a presidential race though. I completely understand why as its perfectly logical to decide to vote on who you want to run the country, even if at a local level individual candidates may have different attributes. This logic has applied for a long time and unless we become a republic with a president who hold executive power of their own, then the only way to make that less of a logic jump is to remove local constituencies and go for some kind of party list system based on share of vote. I'm actually in favour of keeping local links for MPs though

[Son of Mathonwy]

I wouldn't actually mind American-style politics *if* we had an American system. As things stand, we've got a British system where you are supposed to vote for your local MP to represent your local area and then those MPs conclave in Parliament and select one from their number to be Prime Minister and vote on every issue based on their local area and their own beliefs, and we've then overlaid Yankee voting for a leader of the country and decisions all on party line.

Puja

Yup. Our system is set up on the basis of local people voting for a local representative. The media and politicians treat it as a presidential race though. I completely understand why as its perfectly logical to decide to vote on who you want to run the country, even if at a local level individual candidates may have different attributes. This logic has applied for a long time and unless we become a republic with a president who hold executive power of their own, then the only way to make that less of a logic jump is to remove local constituencies and go for some kind of party list system based on share of vote. I'm actually in favour of keeping local links for MPs though

We don't have to get rid of constituences and local MPs. We could use MMP or something similar, like New Zealand. Proportional AND with local MPs.

[Digby]

We could. I'd like it, but I still can't see what might even start to drive such change. There are people lobbying for it, but not only does the government take no hit for ignoring the sort of person asking for change they probably even gain from it

[Puja]

Hooray! Voter suppression through photo ID laws. The problem with electoral fraud that we don't have is finally getting solved!

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... 1620627080

Puja

[Digby]

Racism and a general mistrust of democracy for the win

[morepork]

That is some fuckin bullshit right there. Has this been an issue that has been publicly aired/debated or has has it been slipped in while everyone was asleep?

[Son of Mathonwy]

I'd like to think this obvious voter suppression would give them trouble sleeping but they would need a conscience for that. Something they either had beaten out of them in public school or never developed in the first place.

[Son of Mathonwy]

What's next on the list? Purging the electoral register? Reducing the number of polling stations in poor areas? Handing the counts over to private firms owned by Tory doners?

I'd like to think this would be going too far, even for this lot, but they'll do anything they can get away with.

[Zhivago]

trust you also read that the Tories are gonna change the mayoral elections to FPTP because they're losing to Labour too much

[Son of Mathonwy]

trust you also read that the Tories are gonna change the mayoral elections to FPTP because they're losing to Labour too much

They'd scrap the London mayor completely if they didn't think they had a shot at winning it one day.

[Mikey Brown]

Lol. That’s the trick isn’t it. Surely they’ll never start just being overtly evil.

I’ve fucking given up.

[Puja]

There is now a parliament petition and the government have shown that they'll spin on a sixpence if they think public outrage is against them. Someone call Marcus Rashford. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/576024

The thing that's annoying about it is that it's such a specious issue. The initial response when presented to someone is, "What's wrong with stopping voter fraud? Surely everyone should be in favour of that," and it requires them to be interested enough to listen to the explanation that voter fraud doesn't actually exist and that this is creating a big problem to solve a non-existent one for them to move from that.

Puja

[morepork]

So this was pulled out of someone's arse and deemed high priority, because why?

[Digby]

I would suggest everyone do the same as me, make sure you get your money's worth of their time if they start asking for ID.

Polling stations having to stay open 6 days to handle this wonderful initiative seems the way to go