6 ms·

Global media ask what's happened to Britain

tjpnz 4y ago
The problem was Brexit, or more specifically it going ahead on 51% of the vote without any plan. I couldn't find a more blatant act of economic self-sabotage if I tried.
- unsignednoop 4y ago
  1917 revolution jumps to mind.
  - karmakurtisaani 4y ago
    Well, the conditions before the revolution were probably pretty bad for the average person, so they happily went along in hopes of getting something better. The same cannot be said about pre-brexit Britain, it was just pure self-sabotage.
    - Woodi 4y ago
      Agree. Brexit was executed badly. Very. Still it was motivated by independence from EU insanity in law and push for fast federation with Germans ruling it. I am pro united Europe but it is pure madness to expect entities (countries here) with interdependent history (of hostility) and opposite business expectations to unite in some theoretical ASAP. In my opinion 1k years is good timeframe, assuming everything will go positive all the time. Maybe faster but true integration is not just laws on paper, it is whole continent societes integration so no constatnt backstabbing is default modus operandi. So, IMO, Brexit is not Britain exiting rest of the Europe countries club forever. And plan for lowering taxes was a good thing, just not something what can bring effects in just few months. Why not abolish VAT for example ? Transactions monitoring ? LOL
      - SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
        > Brexit was executed badly. Very. What would a "well-executed brexit" even look like? The problems are that, in order to have a "well-executed brexit", you would need pragmatic, realistic people to execute it. Who are also pro-brexit. and a) I don't think that those exist much. It's a Venn diagram with no meaningful intersection. The realists aren't pro-brexit, and the brexiteers aren't realists. b) Brexit is fundamentally a populist "over-promise to the people" project. Theresa May tried to pitch a reasonable compromise, and got shouted down in favour of more outlandish promises. Realistic versions can't be sold as "the real thing". What existent thing can accurately be sold as the "the real thing" I do not know or care: it's not my problem to polish that turd.
- spants 4y ago
  - malermeister 4y ago
    > The globalists never expected that the people would win. So this is what winning looks like?
  - tomjen3 4y ago
    Do you have a source for those claims of bankcrupty?
  - akmarinov 4y ago
    > EU unemployment is rife What?? Unemployment is at an all time low. Dude, you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about
  - mola 4y ago
    Who are the "globalists" who are "the people"? Are those that voted to stay not part of the people? Why? Because it doesn't fit with your narrative? Your comment reeks of demagoguery with very nasty undertones.
- spants 4y ago
  Where brexit will really make a difference is in the upcoming recession. The ability to change YOUR economic profile without it being voted out by other countries will be crucial.
  - londons_explore 4y ago
    Keep inflation high enough, and it isn't technically a recession...
    - grecy 4y ago
      Zimbabwe has entered the chat
    - mytailorisrich 4y ago
      Brexit accounts for a very small part of the current inflation. There is little doubt that the economy is going into recession, though. And raising corporation tax is only making things worse...
      - lostlogin 4y ago
        Cutting taxes didn’t go down a treat.
        mytailorisrich 4y ago
        Because of the whole package, not because of corporation tax specifically, which was not a tax cut but a cancellation of a planned tax increase.
  - iforgotpassword 4y ago
    If you're a country not depending on imports/exports for anything crucial maybe yes, otherwise you're the little guy with no leverage that has to bend over and take it.
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    Having the last prime minister’s policies blocked by the EU would have been quite helpful. I don’t believe anything she did would have run afoul of EU rules though, but she didn’t have a lot of time.
hunglee2 4y ago
The problem with the UK Tory party is not the personal defects of the captain. The problem is that you’re not eligible for the captaincy unless you agree it was a brilliant idea to scupper the ship in 2016- and can convincingly act baffled why it has been sinking ever since - David Frum
- bamboozled 4y ago
  Couldn't get a much better summary than that, aye aye captain!
  - hunglee2 4y ago
    indeed. Sometimes it takes an outsider to make the most effective observation
- epicureanideal 4y ago
  Brexit isn’t the reason they’re failing and losing support. The reason is they are not enacting the policies the electorate expects from them, and in general have been pursuing foolish policies (again, assuming for the sake of argument at least that Brexit itself is not one of those).
  - SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
    > Brexit isn’t the reason they’re failing and losing support Rubbish. You cannot meaningfully talk about Tory party policies without understanding that they are rooted in brexit, and rooted in Brexiteer denial of reality, of purging the unbelievers from their party until nobody competent was left, of thinking "we'll promise voters pie in the sky and voters will love us for it", which selects for people who truly believe their own fantasies, and which worked for a while, until the bill came due. Why would you "assume for the sake of argument at least that Brexit itself is not one of those foolish Tory policies" when that is starkly untrue: Brexit is not only the most foolish Tory policy, it is the father of the rest of them. Brexit is a root cause. 1) Ian Dunt "the terrible, inevitable end of the Brexit adventure" https://inews.co.uk/opinion/were-now-witnessing-the-terrible-inevitable-end-of-the-brexit-adventure-1920222 https://inews.co.uk/opinion/were-now-witnessing-the-terrible... 2) Chris Grey: "This isn’t just a crisis, it’s a Brexit crisis" https://chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2022/10/total-disarray.html https://chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2022/10/total-disar... 3) The Guardian: "this is where Brexit has inexorably led" https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/02/whisper-it-but-it-was-the-folly-of-brexit-that-paved-the-way-for-trusss-crazy-libertarian-zeal https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/02/whispe... 4) David Frum: "The problem is that you’re not eligible for the (UK Tory party) captaincy unless you agree it was a brilliant idea to scupper the ship in 2016- and can convincingly act baffled why it has been sinking ever since" https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1583402812804722689 https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1583402812804722689
Proven 4y ago
[dead]
bumbledraven 4y ago
Because British voters demanded a change since Brexit and Tory PMs are governing like they’re taking orders from Tony Blair — Ryan Girdusky
nonrandomstring 4y ago
It's the quality of people. Our institutions are reliable. Our parliament, judiciary, civil services, while weakened by decades of under-funding, remain essentially sound and held together by great hard working people with a deep ethic of civic duty. Our electorate are pretty well educated, active and dutiful. Our elections are fair and well attended. We have a multi-chamber carefully segmented government with plenty of checks and balances to steer a path between conservative and progressive courses. On the face of it we should have a model democracy and a prosperous nation. But "politics" in the UK is a seedy, corrupt selection mechanism to find the worst possible human specimens and put them in power. It rewards childish, irresponsible, petulant, mean-spirited, greedy and corrupt little bullies who are vain, shallow, dishonest, weak-minded, cavalier and self-obsessed. And I'm being charitable here. The era of the statesman is over. No matter how excellent our systems are they cannot function if staffed by incompetent hooligans. A massive improvement to British politics could be made simply by selecting the cabinet and prime minister randomly from the population and then voting only on policies.
- gerbler 4y ago
  I'm not sure that the electorate are educated well enough though - pro-brexit votes were higher in poorer, less-well educated areas (there was a strong linear correlation between the two published in The Economist). Agree with your general points but would add that print media heavily influencing uneducated people allows any narrative to be justified.
  - bamboozled 4y ago
    What's scary that if this is true, if the electorate is too silly to vote the right people in, it's only going to get worse. Populist leaders are unlikely to fund schools properly, because it's not in their interest to do so, it's not in their interest to have an educated voting base, and on it will go. I guess eventually, a champion will come from someewhere and help rectify the situation, but who knows how long this will take.
    - vidanay 4y ago
robert_dipaolo 4y ago
I think the problem is the 2 party political system that flip flops between the left and right with one party having full power. We need a more balanced PR based system that forces compromise and gives the smaller parties a voice. I believe Brexit and the latest goonery wouldn't have been allowed to happen in such a system.
gerbler 4y ago
You could summarize it as fanciful brexit economics crashing into reality. The dark irony is that it's from someone (Truss) who wasn't originally in favour of brexit. The FT described her economic strategy as "cakeism" - getting to both eat and have your cake. https://www.ft.com/content/f8f8d943-35e9-423a-9a9a-b6074a6cf29d https://www.ft.com/content/f8f8d943-35e9-423a-9a9a-b6074a6cf...
jl6 4y ago
What’s happened is that Labour’s long-standing unelectability has allowed the UK political scene to become dominated by the digestive tract that is the Tory party. Grassroots-electable Tory MPs go in one end, and gradually work their way through the system, extracting any goodness, until a waste product emerges at the other end. This normally slow-moving constipation of political career development has become fast-flowing diarrhoea in recent months, with the current turd being pushed out before properly flushing the previous effluent, which is now looking up from the bowl through dishevelled hair, looking for a way back in through the newly-vacated opening.
- bamboozled 4y ago
  This is pretty similar to the problems which Japan has had for a very long time. The current party is absolutely hopeless and outdated, but it's essentially been a one party rule since the end of WWII. There are no real opposition, only factions in the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan. It's scary and sad stuff.

The problem was Brexit, or more specifically it going ahead on 51% of the vote without any plan. I couldn't find a more blatant act of economic self-sabotage if I tried.

unsignednoop 4y ago
1917 revolution jumps to mind.
- karmakurtisaani 4y ago
  Well, the conditions before the revolution were probably pretty bad for the average person, so they happily went along in hopes of getting something better. The same cannot be said about pre-brexit Britain, it was just pure self-sabotage.
  - Woodi 4y ago
    Agree. Brexit was executed badly. Very. Still it was motivated by independence from EU insanity in law and push for fast federation with Germans ruling it. I am pro united Europe but it is pure madness to expect entities (countries here) with interdependent history (of hostility) and opposite business expectations to unite in some theoretical ASAP. In my opinion 1k years is good timeframe, assuming everything will go positive all the time. Maybe faster but true integration is not just laws on paper, it is whole continent societes integration so no constatnt backstabbing is default modus operandi. So, IMO, Brexit is not Britain exiting rest of the Europe countries club forever. And plan for lowering taxes was a good thing, just not something what can bring effects in just few months. Why not abolish VAT for example ? Transactions monitoring ? LOL
    - SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
      > Brexit was executed badly. Very. What would a "well-executed brexit" even look like? The problems are that, in order to have a "well-executed brexit", you would need pragmatic, realistic people to execute it. Who are also pro-brexit. and a) I don't think that those exist much. It's a Venn diagram with no meaningful intersection. The realists aren't pro-brexit, and the brexiteers aren't realists. b) Brexit is fundamentally a populist "over-promise to the people" project. Theresa May tried to pitch a reasonable compromise, and got shouted down in favour of more outlandish promises. Realistic versions can't be sold as "the real thing". What existent thing can accurately be sold as the "the real thing" I do not know or care: it's not my problem to polish that turd.
spants 4y ago
- malermeister 4y ago
  > The globalists never expected that the people would win. So this is what winning looks like?
- tomjen3 4y ago
  Do you have a source for those claims of bankcrupty?
- akmarinov 4y ago
  > EU unemployment is rife What?? Unemployment is at an all time low. Dude, you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about
- mola 4y ago
  Who are the "globalists" who are "the people"? Are those that voted to stay not part of the people? Why? Because it doesn't fit with your narrative? Your comment reeks of demagoguery with very nasty undertones.
spants 4y ago
Where brexit will really make a difference is in the upcoming recession. The ability to change YOUR economic profile without it being voted out by other countries will be crucial.
- londons_explore 4y ago
  Keep inflation high enough, and it isn't technically a recession...
  - grecy 4y ago
    Zimbabwe has entered the chat
  - mytailorisrich 4y ago
    Brexit accounts for a very small part of the current inflation. There is little doubt that the economy is going into recession, though. And raising corporation tax is only making things worse...
    - lostlogin 4y ago
      Cutting taxes didn’t go down a treat.
      - mytailorisrich 4y ago
        Because of the whole package, not because of corporation tax specifically, which was not a tax cut but a cancellation of a planned tax increase.
- iforgotpassword 4y ago
  If you're a country not depending on imports/exports for anything crucial maybe yes, otherwise you're the little guy with no leverage that has to bend over and take it.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  Having the last prime minister’s policies blocked by the EU would have been quite helpful. I don’t believe anything she did would have run afoul of EU rules though, but she didn’t have a lot of time.

hunglee2 4y ago

The problem with the UK Tory party is not the personal defects of the captain. The problem is that you’re not eligible for the captaincy unless you agree it was a brilliant idea to scupper the ship in 2016- and can convincingly act baffled why it has been sinking ever since - David Frum

bamboozled 4y ago
Couldn't get a much better summary than that, aye aye captain!
- hunglee2 4y ago
  indeed. Sometimes it takes an outsider to make the most effective observation
epicureanideal 4y ago
Brexit isn’t the reason they’re failing and losing support. The reason is they are not enacting the policies the electorate expects from them, and in general have been pursuing foolish policies (again, assuming for the sake of argument at least that Brexit itself is not one of those).
- SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
  > Brexit isn’t the reason they’re failing and losing support Rubbish. You cannot meaningfully talk about Tory party policies without understanding that they are rooted in brexit, and rooted in Brexiteer denial of reality, of purging the unbelievers from their party until nobody competent was left, of thinking "we'll promise voters pie in the sky and voters will love us for it", which selects for people who truly believe their own fantasies, and which worked for a while, until the bill came due. Why would you "assume for the sake of argument at least that Brexit itself is not one of those foolish Tory policies" when that is starkly untrue: Brexit is not only the most foolish Tory policy, it is the father of the rest of them. Brexit is a root cause. 1) Ian Dunt "the terrible, inevitable end of the Brexit adventure" https://inews.co.uk/opinion/were-now-witnessing-the-terrible-inevitable-end-of-the-brexit-adventure-1920222 https://inews.co.uk/opinion/were-now-witnessing-the-terrible... 2) Chris Grey: "This isn’t just a crisis, it’s a Brexit crisis" https://chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2022/10/total-disarray.html https://chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2022/10/total-disar... 3) The Guardian: "this is where Brexit has inexorably led" https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/02/whisper-it-but-it-was-the-folly-of-brexit-that-paved-the-way-for-trusss-crazy-libertarian-zeal https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/02/whispe... 4) David Frum: "The problem is that you’re not eligible for the (UK Tory party) captaincy unless you agree it was a brilliant idea to scupper the ship in 2016- and can convincingly act baffled why it has been sinking ever since" https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1583402812804722689 https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1583402812804722689

Proven 4y ago

[dead]

bumbledraven 4y ago

Because British voters demanded a change since Brexit and Tory PMs are governing like they’re taking orders from Tony Blair — Ryan Girdusky

nonrandomstring 4y ago

It's the quality of people. Our institutions are reliable. Our parliament, judiciary, civil services, while weakened by decades of under-funding, remain essentially sound and held together by great hard working people with a deep ethic of civic duty. Our electorate are pretty well educated, active and dutiful. Our elections are fair and well attended. We have a multi-chamber carefully segmented government with plenty of checks and balances to steer a path between conservative and progressive courses. On the face of it we should have a model democracy and a prosperous nation. But "politics" in the UK is a seedy, corrupt selection mechanism to find the worst possible human specimens and put them in power. It rewards childish, irresponsible, petulant, mean-spirited, greedy and corrupt little bullies who are vain, shallow, dishonest, weak-minded, cavalier and self-obsessed. And I'm being charitable here. The era of the statesman is over. No matter how excellent our systems are they cannot function if staffed by incompetent hooligans. A massive improvement to British politics could be made simply by selecting the cabinet and prime minister randomly from the population and then voting only on policies.

gerbler 4y ago
I'm not sure that the electorate are educated well enough though - pro-brexit votes were higher in poorer, less-well educated areas (there was a strong linear correlation between the two published in The Economist). Agree with your general points but would add that print media heavily influencing uneducated people allows any narrative to be justified.
- bamboozled 4y ago
  What's scary that if this is true, if the electorate is too silly to vote the right people in, it's only going to get worse. Populist leaders are unlikely to fund schools properly, because it's not in their interest to do so, it's not in their interest to have an educated voting base, and on it will go. I guess eventually, a champion will come from someewhere and help rectify the situation, but who knows how long this will take.
  - vidanay 4y ago

robert_dipaolo 4y ago

I think the problem is the 2 party political system that flip flops between the left and right with one party having full power. We need a more balanced PR based system that forces compromise and gives the smaller parties a voice. I believe Brexit and the latest goonery wouldn't have been allowed to happen in such a system.

gerbler 4y ago

You could summarize it as fanciful brexit economics crashing into reality. The dark irony is that it's from someone (Truss) who wasn't originally in favour of brexit. The FT described her economic strategy as "cakeism" - getting to both eat and have your cake. https://www.ft.com/content/f8f8d943-35e9-423a-9a9a-b6074a6cf29d https://www.ft.com/content/f8f8d943-35e9-423a-9a9a-b6074a6cf...

jl6 4y ago

What’s happened is that Labour’s long-standing unelectability has allowed the UK political scene to become dominated by the digestive tract that is the Tory party. Grassroots-electable Tory MPs go in one end, and gradually work their way through the system, extracting any goodness, until a waste product emerges at the other end. This normally slow-moving constipation of political career development has become fast-flowing diarrhoea in recent months, with the current turd being pushed out before properly flushing the previous effluent, which is now looking up from the bowl through dishevelled hair, looking for a way back in through the newly-vacated opening.

bamboozled 4y ago
This is pretty similar to the problems which Japan has had for a very long time. The current party is absolutely hopeless and outdated, but it's essentially been a one party rule since the end of WWII. There are no real opposition, only factions in the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan. It's scary and sad stuff.