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Discussion (91 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
I don't expect huge improvements under Burnham but I hope for at least some police manpower numbers to recover. There have been intermittent stories of planning, FSA and trading standards personnel being threatened by armed gangs in the last few years which is an indicator of some new severe gaps in state capacity.
Meanwhile ignoring the actually violent far right to the point that we had arson attacks in Belfast and a stabbing spree killer in Edinburgh.
Not to argue against the point you're making but these aren't good examples. Policing in both Northern Ireland and Scotland are fully devolved and operate independently of the government in Westminster.
This is orthogonal with how police should tackle the violence you mention.
Edit in response to @pjc50's replay below:
The signs are a serious criminal offence. Supporting a proscribed terror organisation is a serious criminal offence according to the law and arrest is unavoidable.
Edit 2: What constitutes a "serious criminal offence" is not subjective based on one's personal opinion, it is what the law defines as such...
This was literally a decision Starmer personally made, to put Palestine Action on the proscribed organization list. Without that the signs would not be an offence.
The police always have a choice as to which crimes they investigate. This is why petty theft in London is almost totally ignored.
(and the underlying decision to proscribe Palestine action was, of course, taken by Keir Starmer. It is a significant part of why he is out now.)
(edit war: "the signs are a serious criminal offence" -- this is why the Americans will be laughing at us about freedom of speech when they wake up on this forum.)
I don't see corresponding arrests being deployed against Twitter posters who were supporting the riots in Belfast, including the firebombing of immigrant homes, for example. I guess that's because they're not an organisation with a name, which is the important thing, rather than the actual violence?
My personal favourite (and not the only example, but my own final straw) was his response when a large chunk of his traditional electorate voted for a female Plumber 'who wanted to make work pay for working people' and build 'healthier communities' is worth watching as an example of how to make more people jump ship.
For better or worse I signed up for the Green Party on the spot when I read that.
He was possibly a good backroom manager and well intentioned, but for leadership... no.
(note that the mirror image of this, the Gordon Brown being secretly taped talking about a bigoted woman, was considered career ending!)
Internal thoughts or internal voice?
So governance is, at best, semi random…
Now it's start again...
But no one wants suffer the temporary pain to make the reforms needed to change it. They just want to grumble and say the current leader isn’t any good before moving onto the next one, rather than admitting they might need to actually accept some change in the country.
If you could get one bill through Parliament, what would it do?
Edit: lol thanks HN for the usual downvote! :) I love this place!
If you do a million pounds in criminal damage and attack a police officer with a sledgehammer, you can't just write it off as 'direct action', you deserve a tough jail sentence whatever the cause.
If the government is legitimately evil for proscribing a group they should be able to deal with their constituents calling them out for it. Materially hindering a genocide is by all currently accepted human standards a good thing.
Opposing the Oval Office means shortages in the supermarkets, gas power stations turning off and a bond crash that makes the DWP lack the liquidity to service all of the monthly state pension payments, besides a great many other problems.
Fuck 'em. Sympathy gone.
Also I vote on local policy. The Middle East is a big political distraction from what's actually going on here. 99.9% of us can do fuck all about the Middle East and I suspect 90% of the country couldn't give a flying fuck about it either. But you know the council spent time on a meeting so they have a gaza policy but can't collect the bins reliably.
It's weird how you people never notice that NOBODY else is "arrested"
My proposal: Let's get rid of the position of PM altogether. Maybe then the musical chairs will stop.
Burnham (for those who are unaware) can be best described as a Tony Blair B-side, and is most notable from his previous stint in government for his role in the Private Finance Initiative disaster, eg:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jun/28/labour-debt-peter...
At least here, it already happened, to have the PM resigning and then someone else from the party to pick up the role and that’s legally sound.
Whoever can prove to the King he can 'command the confidence of the house' is given the title of Prime Minister, and is free to form a government.
Unfortunately the system has flaws, and a sizeable chunk of people treat it all as a Presidential vote by proxy.
They are. It's a parliamentary system, not a presidential system. Nobody votes directly for who will become PM, who is ultimately selected by the monarch as the person who can best command a majority of the House of Commons – normally the leader of the biggest party, of course, but not necessarily. Perpetuating this view is frustrating because it's not what the system is designed for, and I feel a common misconception among voters that they are "electing the PM".
With the increasing breaking of two-party politics, it would not surprise me if we see this precedent of the monarch choosing a PM who can command a majority tested in close outcomes in future GEs where no party gains an overall majority. I'll be particularly interested to see how the press describes such an outcome, if it occurs, especially if the result is that the party with the most votes doesn't go on to join such a coalition.
Nevertheless, it frustrates me when these changes are described as "undemocratic", as that's a common talking point perpetuated by a poor understanding of the constitutional basis of UK elections. If there is a desire that the PM should be directly elected, that would mean a substantial rewiring of the UK constitution more broadly.
Love the UK - we can be brutal if MPs want a leader .
But replacing it with another guy that has no mandate is a fatal mistake. What Labor needed was an internal contest to fight for the best ideas, even if the winner was already pre-determined. A single local poll can't possibly decide the future of the country.
But perhaps the idea is to trigger a re-election because a "continue as usual" will be fatal for Labour and the country.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_U...
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/one-more-lane-bro-one-more-la...
I admit to knowing very little (close to nothing) about UK politics. But I'm happy to see the use of "socialism" in up-front talking points. It's at least a nod in the right direction.
> He says years of privatization and deregulation have not only stripped the government of control over its costs and services but also saddled it with inefficiencies.
Ok, also seems reasonable.
> Burnham campaigned for Britain to stay in the European Union at the time of the Brexit referendum in 2016.
Yes, still good (on the surface, anyway).
> Farage's party has been well ahead of Labour in opinion polls for many months.
Unrelated to the stuff directly above but still disappointing. Dems and Labour need to do a better job or disaffected people will continue to listen to the siren song of fascists telling them that their problems are caused by THE SPOOKY OTHER.