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No-one voted for this. The police in the UK are using a combination of existing powers (for example, intimidating people by using their powers to question peopl

No-one voted for this. The police in the UK are using a combination of existing powers (for example, intimidating people by using their powers to question people), non-statutory instruments that politicians have told them repeatedly to stop using, and laws that are being applied to the online world in an expansive way (the current PM is the former head of government prosecutions so is basically the worst person possible to prevent this, the person who passed one of the most infamous laws, Tony Blair, has said it is problematic). Just generally, this model doesn't apply to the UK. There is an extremely long history of people voting one way and the government doing something else. This is because the country is led by people whose views are shared by no-one, and the tremendous power of the Civil Service (elected officials have limited powers to direct civil servants and cannot remove all but a handful of civil servants...there was an example recently of a senior civil servant giving incorrect information to a minister, the minister was forced to resign, that senior civil servant stayed in for several years, another minister attempted to remove them, the civil servant sued and won a substantial settlement then chose to retire early on a full pension...he was responsible for several massive issues in his department too, Windrush was one, there were many others). A more nefarious factor is that turnout has collapsed because voters, correctly, understand that their vote doesn't actually matter. The government is unable to do things so why bother voting. Turnout is significantly higher in Russia presidential elections. To give you an example, the current level of immigration is supported by ~3% of the population. No-one supports this. The government knows no-one supports this. Immigration has stayed high for multiple years, we have had elections, it doesn't matter. If we elected someone to fix it, they would be unable to fix it. Labour have tried to fix it...they spent years in opposition saying the Tories couldn't fix it with their policies...they get into government, within a year they are now trying the exact same policies...because Parliament has no real control, whether in theory or in reality, to change anything, the government gets in, the civil service present the same choices that won't work...you have to be actually mad to think voting makes a difference. The idea that you can fix things by voting is the reason why things are stagnating.

alephnerd 1y ago
I'm not sure it can be attributed to political parties in the UK. By most standards, the British political tradition has remained paternalistic in it's mindset, and a lot of the shifts in civil liberties happened fairly late (1980s-90s) and without the requisite judicial scaffolding being built in place. Furthermore, a lot of the same powers and institutions used for internal security during the Troubles were redeployed during the GWOT and never pushed back against legally speaking. For example, London was the first major city to deploy centralized CCTV surveillance en masse. And this isn't a UK only thing - across Europe, mass surveillance laws and government perogative are much stronger than their equivalents in the US, and given tensions on the eastern border of EU+ due to a belligerent neighbor like Russia and Azerbaijan using grey zone tactics, I think we might see a further regression on this front, because NatSec will always trump liberties. By most standards, we're in an interregnum period similar to the 1930s, the "Dreadnought Wars" (1906-1914), or the 1950s that can spill over.
- skippyboxedhero 1y ago
  Yes, the Troubles are a huge factor, the security services play a huge and unwelcome part in our political process. I think I mentioned elsewhere, I assume most people are familiar with this but most of the media campaigns that accompany legislation are pushed by the police/security services. Online Safety Act was an example, there was a massive media campaign over multiple years. I believe the case that caused it happened nearly ten years ago now, it went quiet for years and then suddenly sparked back up again, parents put out in front of the media...every time. And it is a legacy of things like the Troubles where you have massive internal political instability and these kind of things become normal. These powers aren't formal though, it is all informal. If we are talking about Europe, you see the same thing in Germany (to an extent, in Germany there is a paranoia about political parties, different but historical context).
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    > Online Safety Act was an example, there was a massive media campaign over multiple years. I believe the case that caused it happened nearly ten years ago now, it went quiet for years and then suddenly sparked back up again, parents put out in front of the media...every time. That's actually a bit of a dumber story than that. Basically, a well connected and knighted documentary maker (Beeban Kidron) made pornography regulation her sole personal mission after she became a mother. The UK being a fairly small political playground and her significant network thanks to Miramax made it easy for her to lobby and get private and public support in the UK and California. Once she was inducted in the House of Lords in 2012, she went gung ho lobbying for it. > informal. If we are talking about Europe, you see the same thing in Germany (to an extent, in Germany there is a paranoia about political parties, different but historical context). Yep. A lot of the Cold War era rules and regulations remain in place
noir_lord 1y ago
> elected officials have limited powers to direct civil servants and cannot remove all but a handful of civil servants. On the other hand politicians frequently blame the civil servants as well. In reality, parliament is sovereign, if they really wanted to reform the civil service they could do it via changing the laws.
- skippyboxedhero 1y ago
  Okay...and you are presumably aware that every government since the 60s has tried to reform the Civil Service? And how has that gone? Parliament is not sovereign because this is an administrative issue. As I explained, elected officials have limited direct control over ministries. And an even bigger issue is that the Civil Service is unionized, so if you were actually looking to reform it wholesale then you would have to shut down government for months with irreparable damage done in the media by civil servants briefing daily against you...so I am not aware of a way to do this. You can't reform ministries, you can't reform the whole thing...so what is the solution? The reason why politicians blame the civil servants is because they are bad. No-one thinks otherwise. The past three heads of the civil service have acknowledged there are massive issues with competence at every level, this is not new. But it isn't possible to reform. I am not sure how anyone can think Parliament is sovereign in this matter either. It makes no sense based on the evidence of repeated issues with competence and multiple governments being unable to fix that.
  - pcrh 1y ago
    No system is perfect or never in need of reform, including the UK civil service. However, recent attacks on the civil service from the political right are almost always a consequence of reality colliding with politics, i.e. the civil service pointing out that ministerial decisions may be unlawful, etc. There are legions of examples of this conflict arising under the previous Tory government. As such, it is indeed within the power of parliament to change the law so that their political objectives may be met. It is not up to the civil service to break the law when that is convenient to ministers.
KaiserPro 1y ago
The tories activly campaigned on the platform of regulating internet speech. > Windrush was one, there were many others mate, windrush was down to May and her spads. They knew the problems, but decided that the press was worth it. > the current level of immigration is supported by ~3% of the population Immigration has halved this year. The problem is that has tradeoffs, like social care isn't going work anymore. I understand your frustrations. I hate that no matter who I vote for I seem to get reform-lite dipshits. Thats not the fault of the civil service (although there is an entire subject in it's self) thats the fault of the press and political class being too close.
- skippyboxedhero 1y ago
  Exactly. I would read about what actually happened. There were multiple failures in the Home Office, in particular some statistics were incorrectly reported by the Rudd (I am not sure why you are talking about May) based on figures she was told by civil servants, she then had to resign. Not only that but the correct figures were actually leaked to the press shortly after (this is something that has happened in the Home Office before). Okay, and it has halved to the highest level ever. If you want to have ones of these interminable discussions about your favourite politicians, please stop. I am not interested in hearing which colour rosette you prefer, and how everything is the fault of the other guys. It is complete and total nonsense. The reason why we have the system we have is because it is too easy for a politician to claim they will fix everything (the drop in immigration is nothing to do with Starmer either, it was to do with the Tories whose legacy on immigration is unspeakable, it has halved to a level that is unbelievably high). Yes, it is the fault of the civil service because, as I assume you don't understand, ministers legally have a limited set of options when they are making policy (this was one of the issues the Tories faced, Rwanda was a variation of a policy that had been explored since the early 2000s...it wasn't a new policy, which is why Labour are now going down the same route...we had an election, same policies). They come into office, explain to the civil servants what they want to do, and then they are given a choice of policies...if a minister chooses not to one of these things then the policy can later be challenged in the courts, and legal discovery can be used to overturn the policy if there is no legal basis for it (essentially, whether it was approved by the civil service). Every new government comes in finding the same thing. You are already seeing people in Labour complain about Reeves...well, guess what? There are no alternatives. Your comment about Reform-lite is ridiculous, every party is Reform, every party is Labour, every party is the Tories. The game continues as long as people like you give it credibility by suggesting that voting has any impact and will change anything...it won't. A lot of the briefing that the press get is from the civil service too...I can't understand how you can talk about immigration and then complain about the press...why do you think Johnson increased immigration? The press, relentless briefing from lobbyists, relentless pressure from civil servants in the Home Office briefing against the government (the Home Office is notorious for this btw, as I just explained above, I remember Charles Clarke complaining about this...unbelivable).
onetimeusename 1y ago
I think the entire West is experiencing this problem. Things like immigration laws are determined not by elected officials but by bureaucrats and judges/lawyers who it turns out are often on the same side. It's a very sticky problem. The Nomenklatura of the USSR is probably the most similar description.
- ethbr1 1y ago
  > are determined not by elected officials but by bureaucrats and judges/lawyers who it turns out are often on the same side "Fixing" that is an awfully slippery slope towards dictatorship though. The entire reason that system exists -- to preserve competence and skills in government despite political leadership change and to provide independent checks on elected officials' power -- is because of historical abuses by elected officials. Ergo, I'm enormously suspicious of suggestions about tearing down the barriers to change... ... because those barriers exist for a damned good reason. Imho, people should talk more about adjusting the balance in the system, but preserving all the independent components, and less about vilifying specific pieces of the balance of power.
  - onetimeusename 1y ago
    I am concerned about how lawyers may be a closed off group. Especially with grads from the top law schools who often work at NGOs or become judges in high courts that end up deciding major things. I think precedent could be set in a way that reflects the tastes of a small and detached group of people.
    - ethbr1 1y ago
      That's literally what we want in a rule of law system -- people more beholden to the legal system than to common concerns of voters. Put another way, the role of the legal system is to be a linter for the messy / incomplete / illegal reality of legislative and executive desires.
      - onetimeusename 1y ago

alephnerd 1y ago

I'm not sure it can be attributed to political parties in the UK. By most standards, the British political tradition has remained paternalistic in it's mindset, and a lot of the shifts in civil liberties happened fairly late (1980s-90s) and without the requisite judicial scaffolding being built in place. Furthermore, a lot of the same powers and institutions used for internal security during the Troubles were redeployed during the GWOT and never pushed back against legally speaking. For example, London was the first major city to deploy centralized CCTV surveillance en masse. And this isn't a UK only thing - across Europe, mass surveillance laws and government perogative are much stronger than their equivalents in the US, and given tensions on the eastern border of EU+ due to a belligerent neighbor like Russia and Azerbaijan using grey zone tactics, I think we might see a further regression on this front, because NatSec will always trump liberties. By most standards, we're in an interregnum period similar to the 1930s, the "Dreadnought Wars" (1906-1914), or the 1950s that can spill over.

skippyboxedhero 1y ago
Yes, the Troubles are a huge factor, the security services play a huge and unwelcome part in our political process. I think I mentioned elsewhere, I assume most people are familiar with this but most of the media campaigns that accompany legislation are pushed by the police/security services. Online Safety Act was an example, there was a massive media campaign over multiple years. I believe the case that caused it happened nearly ten years ago now, it went quiet for years and then suddenly sparked back up again, parents put out in front of the media...every time. And it is a legacy of things like the Troubles where you have massive internal political instability and these kind of things become normal. These powers aren't formal though, it is all informal. If we are talking about Europe, you see the same thing in Germany (to an extent, in Germany there is a paranoia about political parties, different but historical context).
- alephnerd 1y ago
  > Online Safety Act was an example, there was a massive media campaign over multiple years. I believe the case that caused it happened nearly ten years ago now, it went quiet for years and then suddenly sparked back up again, parents put out in front of the media...every time. That's actually a bit of a dumber story than that. Basically, a well connected and knighted documentary maker (Beeban Kidron) made pornography regulation her sole personal mission after she became a mother. The UK being a fairly small political playground and her significant network thanks to Miramax made it easy for her to lobby and get private and public support in the UK and California. Once she was inducted in the House of Lords in 2012, she went gung ho lobbying for it. > informal. If we are talking about Europe, you see the same thing in Germany (to an extent, in Germany there is a paranoia about political parties, different but historical context). Yep. A lot of the Cold War era rules and regulations remain in place

noir_lord 1y ago

> elected officials have limited powers to direct civil servants and cannot remove all but a handful of civil servants. On the other hand politicians frequently blame the civil servants as well. In reality, parliament is sovereign, if they really wanted to reform the civil service they could do it via changing the laws.

skippyboxedhero 1y ago
Okay...and you are presumably aware that every government since the 60s has tried to reform the Civil Service? And how has that gone? Parliament is not sovereign because this is an administrative issue. As I explained, elected officials have limited direct control over ministries. And an even bigger issue is that the Civil Service is unionized, so if you were actually looking to reform it wholesale then you would have to shut down government for months with irreparable damage done in the media by civil servants briefing daily against you...so I am not aware of a way to do this. You can't reform ministries, you can't reform the whole thing...so what is the solution? The reason why politicians blame the civil servants is because they are bad. No-one thinks otherwise. The past three heads of the civil service have acknowledged there are massive issues with competence at every level, this is not new. But it isn't possible to reform. I am not sure how anyone can think Parliament is sovereign in this matter either. It makes no sense based on the evidence of repeated issues with competence and multiple governments being unable to fix that.
- pcrh 1y ago
  No system is perfect or never in need of reform, including the UK civil service. However, recent attacks on the civil service from the political right are almost always a consequence of reality colliding with politics, i.e. the civil service pointing out that ministerial decisions may be unlawful, etc. There are legions of examples of this conflict arising under the previous Tory government. As such, it is indeed within the power of parliament to change the law so that their political objectives may be met. It is not up to the civil service to break the law when that is convenient to ministers.

KaiserPro 1y ago

The tories activly campaigned on the platform of regulating internet speech. > Windrush was one, there were many others mate, windrush was down to May and her spads. They knew the problems, but decided that the press was worth it. > the current level of immigration is supported by ~3% of the population Immigration has halved this year. The problem is that has tradeoffs, like social care isn't going work anymore. I understand your frustrations. I hate that no matter who I vote for I seem to get reform-lite dipshits. Thats not the fault of the civil service (although there is an entire subject in it's self) thats the fault of the press and political class being too close.

skippyboxedhero 1y ago
Exactly. I would read about what actually happened. There were multiple failures in the Home Office, in particular some statistics were incorrectly reported by the Rudd (I am not sure why you are talking about May) based on figures she was told by civil servants, she then had to resign. Not only that but the correct figures were actually leaked to the press shortly after (this is something that has happened in the Home Office before). Okay, and it has halved to the highest level ever. If you want to have ones of these interminable discussions about your favourite politicians, please stop. I am not interested in hearing which colour rosette you prefer, and how everything is the fault of the other guys. It is complete and total nonsense. The reason why we have the system we have is because it is too easy for a politician to claim they will fix everything (the drop in immigration is nothing to do with Starmer either, it was to do with the Tories whose legacy on immigration is unspeakable, it has halved to a level that is unbelievably high). Yes, it is the fault of the civil service because, as I assume you don't understand, ministers legally have a limited set of options when they are making policy (this was one of the issues the Tories faced, Rwanda was a variation of a policy that had been explored since the early 2000s...it wasn't a new policy, which is why Labour are now going down the same route...we had an election, same policies). They come into office, explain to the civil servants what they want to do, and then they are given a choice of policies...if a minister chooses not to one of these things then the policy can later be challenged in the courts, and legal discovery can be used to overturn the policy if there is no legal basis for it (essentially, whether it was approved by the civil service). Every new government comes in finding the same thing. You are already seeing people in Labour complain about Reeves...well, guess what? There are no alternatives. Your comment about Reform-lite is ridiculous, every party is Reform, every party is Labour, every party is the Tories. The game continues as long as people like you give it credibility by suggesting that voting has any impact and will change anything...it won't. A lot of the briefing that the press get is from the civil service too...I can't understand how you can talk about immigration and then complain about the press...why do you think Johnson increased immigration? The press, relentless briefing from lobbyists, relentless pressure from civil servants in the Home Office briefing against the government (the Home Office is notorious for this btw, as I just explained above, I remember Charles Clarke complaining about this...unbelivable).

onetimeusename 1y ago

I think the entire West is experiencing this problem. Things like immigration laws are determined not by elected officials but by bureaucrats and judges/lawyers who it turns out are often on the same side. It's a very sticky problem. The Nomenklatura of the USSR is probably the most similar description.

ethbr1 1y ago
> are determined not by elected officials but by bureaucrats and judges/lawyers who it turns out are often on the same side "Fixing" that is an awfully slippery slope towards dictatorship though. The entire reason that system exists -- to preserve competence and skills in government despite political leadership change and to provide independent checks on elected officials' power -- is because of historical abuses by elected officials. Ergo, I'm enormously suspicious of suggestions about tearing down the barriers to change... ... because those barriers exist for a damned good reason. Imho, people should talk more about adjusting the balance in the system, but preserving all the independent components, and less about vilifying specific pieces of the balance of power.
- onetimeusename 1y ago
  I am concerned about how lawyers may be a closed off group. Especially with grads from the top law schools who often work at NGOs or become judges in high courts that end up deciding major things. I think precedent could be set in a way that reflects the tastes of a small and detached group of people.
  - ethbr1 1y ago
    That's literally what we want in a rule of law system -- people more beholden to the legal system than to common concerns of voters. Put another way, the role of the legal system is to be a linter for the messy / incomplete / illegal reality of legislative and executive desires.
    - onetimeusename 1y ago