Sampson

I think the reality is that if the Tories and Labour realised that’s it’s in the national interest they are closer together than they are to Reform and would be happy to do the coalition that Churchill and Attlee did in WW2. Similar to the social democrats and conservatives are doing in Germany. The problem is Boris purged all the moderates from the Tory party during the Brexit wrangling and so you’re mostly left with populists and Reform symphathisers at the top of the Tory party

Sadly I think there are enough people who’ll vote Tory out of habit to make it a possibility to happen. And while Badenoch is leader, she’ll coalition up to him while also being weak enough that Farage will just walk all over her in a coalition and she’ll become an obedient “yes” woman.

Genuinely getting to the point where I’m getting worried to publicly say anything about Trump or America in case of the consequences when Farage takes power.

Without wanting to sounds like a broken record, this is a great video on population ageing that’s worth watching, focusing especially on South Korea.

nm

Both, at least as today is Tuesday in the question, it’s not one or the other. It’s fine to use either in the first part of the week. It’s when it gets to Friday or maybe Thursday that “next weekend” means the one after the current coming one imo.

Kinda though the Trump dementia rumours were just speculative thinking but this is as bad as anything Biden did during the election campaign

Agreed. When Africa becomes the only place on earth with a young working population in a few decades time it will be China who are the economic superpower.

It’s going to hurt the economy of every country on Earth. The thing that will make Russia and China happy is that developing countries in Africa and the Middle East now no longer have the US as an option to trade with so will turn towards China and Russia.

It’s all about the complete dehumanisation of immigrants. The public cruelty and humiliation is the point.

****ing finally! Be a Labour leader already. And aim to rejoin the customs union while we’re at it

From what I’ve seen online, the reason these uninhabited islands are getting tariffed is because they just got a list of countries based on internet domain names, as if it’s spat out by an AI programme. I think, given the 14 year-old tech bro mentality they seem to have, there’s more than a small chance that they just asked ChatGPT to churn out a spreadsheet for their tariff table, and have decided to base the economic practice of the richest country in the world on a ChatGPT churned-our spreadsheet.

This is what it’s all about really. He’s trying to pull up the drawbridge and isolate the US from the rest of the world, so he can make a Libertarian utopia shut off from the rest of the world. He’s basically Andrew Ryan in BioShock.

I'd hate to see what they do with the Nationalities & Borders Act, Police Crime Sentencing & Courts Act and The Public Order Act. The could use them for justification of shutting down virtually any protests against them and throwing people in prison who protest against them and creating a two tier form of citizenship between pretty much anyone who isn't born and raised 3 generation British and anyone who has at least one grandparent, parent or where themselves born outside of the UK. The Tories really did push through some absolutely rotten acts at the end of their premiership in terms of opening up a can of worms for potential authoritarianism, using Begum and the JSO protesters as emotional excuses to create some pretty scary laws and legal precedents, which are absolutely ripe for populists like Farage to take scary advantage of.

It was the end game of the Americanisation of European Politics - dreaming of a Libertarian utopia in Europe. Thankfully the British public and markets saw through it (at least for now).

Think that’s Canadian

At the same time you have to remember our population is very old nowadays and your chances of being legally considered disabled either through cognitive decline or mental issues associated with ageing or needing help to move properly grow exponentially after you reach 55. I can’t remember which European country it was, Austria I think? When they raised the pension age, it didn’t even save them much, as a lot of people over 70 struggle either physically or mentally to work 40 hour weeks, so they just get pushed onto disability or job seekers benefits instead. 1/4 of people being considered physically or mentally unable to work doesn’t sound outrageous to me when your population is so old. Without meaning to sound like a broken record, I’ll say as I usually do, that so many of our problems in the west stem directly from population ageing.

It’s clearer than ever that we are a European country with European values. We get hoodwinked sometimes that because of our shared language we feel like we aren’t a few islands in Europe but are in the middle of the Atlantic and are so somehow in between the US and Europe and should tread the line between them, but I don’t see how you can still make that argument. Language barrier apart, in terms of our values, legal system, culture, sport etc. we’re just much closer to Germany, France, Italy, the Nordics, Benelux, Iberia etc. than we are the US. And let’s not forget, the culturally closest and most important country for the UK foreign policy-wise to remain on cordial terms with will always be Ireland, sheerly out of geography and our pretty rotten history towards them. Canada I could understand as that feels much closer to a European country values wise than the US. But America just values different things. It has a right to go down its own path, but we should be remembering we are much more alike Canada and Denmark when it threatens them.

Yeah of course, they’re not really similar economically. Labour and LibDems are much closer than Greens and LibDems on most issues other than Europe. But I could totally see a world where both would stand down for each other to beat a Tory-Reform victory.

Almost certainly

It’s hard to say but I suspect Labour, LibDems and Greens are much better at standing down in seats and forming a pact. I think Tories and Reform are at each other too much (despite being 2 sides of the same coin these days) and so will refuse to cooperate and ultimately take votes off each other.

Latest UK voting intention. Be interesting to see what would happen if Greens and LibDems made a voting pact, they’d be leading the race. Yougov voting intention Labour 23% (-3) Reform 22% (-2) Tories 22% Lib Dem 16% (+2) Green 10% (+1)

What do you mean “current form”? I’m talking about basic ideas of separation of powers with separate authorities and a civil service, ideas the governments and leaders have to obey the law just like everyone else, rights of protest and criticism of government and international institutions designed to make countries work together. I think economic ideals and capitalism have stopped working since 2008, but that’s very different from liberal democracy and it’s a poor excuse to beg for authoritarianism and nationalism. The alternative is authoritarianism and nationalism and a wholly centralised form of governance which means giving 1 or 2 person at the top of a country absolute power to do what they like and giving those countries the power to invade and dictate what they like to smaller countries . And if that stops working, well then good luck trying to get that changed without getting yourself thrown in prison, kicked out and banished from the country or worse.

I do feel this is different though. Regardless of whether you were Tory or Labour before, I don’t remember so much support in UK, Europe, US and the rest of the west for dismantling the institutions and checks and balances that have held up liberal democracy in the west since WW2.

But the right wing parties, at least in UK and US purged their parties of the reasonable moderates tbf and don’t represent those viewpoints anymore. Labour and the Democrats actually represent more moderate right wing views much more than the Tories, Reform or the Republicans do these days. The latter absolutely do represent the weird, radical, performative cruelty ideals nowadays. That isnt judging heavily cherry picked social media feeds opinion. It’s literally the policy and open ideals of these parties.