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Re: British Politics Guide
Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2023 4:13 am
by alice
Bear in mind that he has to avoid offending the most important people in any election campaign: the owners of the right-wing newspapers.
Re: British Politics Guide
Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2023 5:25 pm
by Ketsuban
Since nobody linked the source.
Sunak received his loudest applause from the Tory crowd in Manchester when he [baldly declared]: “A man is a man and a woman is a woman.” Does Starmer [...] agree? “Yes, of course,” he responds crisply and without qualification. “You know, a woman is a female adult.”
Call me crazy, but when Keir Starmer answers the question "do you agree with Rishi Sunak's statements on trans women" with an emphatic yes I'm inclined to think he's telling you what he thinks rather than that he's playing nine-dimensional electoral chess. I only trust politicians to go back on their word when it involves adopting left-wing policies.
Re: British Politics Guide
Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2023 1:21 am
by Raphael
Ketsuban wrote: ↑Sun Oct 08, 2023 5:25 pmI'm inclined to think he's telling you what he thinks rather than that he's playing nine-dimensional electoral chess.
It's not so much nine-dimensional electoral chess as plain cowardice. But yes, it could be simply what he thinks, too.
Re: British Politics Guide
Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2023 10:32 pm
by Arkasas
Salmoneus wrote: ↑Sun May 26, 2019 1:35 pm
Part of it is the gradual intellectual and moral decline of the Tory party. Just look at, say, Tory Foreign Secretaries. Johnson and Hunt are no Hammond and Hague; Hammond and Hague are no Rifkind and Hurd. Rifkind and Hurd were arguably no Major and Howe, and certainly Major and Howe were no Carrington and Pym.
Sunak, in his infinite wisdom, seems to have found a solution to this decline, at least as far as Foreign Secretaries go: David Cameron.
Re: British Politics Guide
Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2023 2:52 am
by alice
To quote someone else: "Yesterday's Man for Tomorrow's Future!".
Re: British Politics Guide
Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2023 11:31 am
by Raphael
Not that I'd have any sympathy for either Sunak or Cameron, of course, but I do kind of wonder what's it like to work in a lower position in a place where you used to be the boss, or to have someone working for you who used to do your current job.
Re: British Politics Guide
Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2024 11:44 am
by Raphael
Just started to read the Wikipedia article on the whole Post Office scandal:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_P ... ce_scandal
Wow. That's really very fucked up.
(On a minor note, I wish at least one of the news reports or blog posts I read on the matter would have explained the basics of what happened as clearly and concisely as the opening paragraph of the Wikipedia article. For a while, all I understood was that there was something somehow scandalous involving the British Post Office, computers, and miscarriages of justice.)
Re: British Politics Guide
Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2024 12:21 pm
by Linguoboy
Ian Hislop of
Private Eye has made bringing this to light something of a personal crusade and has delivered several blistering screeds on the subject. I'm not sure if it's him who coined the descriptor "the most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history" but I've heard him deploy it several times.
Even after I understood the basic scandal, he was instrumental in helping me comprehend one of the most appalling aspects of it: It was essentially the rich plundering the middle-class. The higher-ups new that the software was faulty and that the subpostmaters couldn't possibly have owed that much, but the money for their bonuses had to come from somewhere. Hislop correctly identified the scandal as a direct consequence of running the Post for profit.
Re: British Politics Guide
Posted: Sun Apr 21, 2024 2:45 am
by Raphael
Trivial note: a few days ago, I noticed that the word "laboratory" contains the names of both of the major British parties (yes, I know about the missing "u"), and now I can't unsee that.
Re: British Politics Guide
Posted: Thu Apr 25, 2024 11:47 am
by hwhatting
Raphael wrote: ↑Sun Apr 21, 2024 2:45 am
Trivial note: a few days ago, I noticed that the word "laboratory" contains the names of both of the major British parties (yes, I know about the missing "u"), and now I can't unsee that.
That somehow reminded me of how, when I was a pre-teen and didn't know much English yet, I was wondering about the
Leber-Party they were talking about in the news (that was that period in the 70s when Britain seemed to have an election about every year) - did Britain have parties where everybody ate liver, and what did that have to do with politics?
Re: British Politics Guide
Posted: Tue May 14, 2024 5:19 am
by Raphael
Why is the collection of built-up areas that serves as the capital of the UK generally called "London" and not "Westminster"?
Re: British Politics Guide
Posted: Tue May 14, 2024 9:20 am
by Ketsuban
The name London had greater prestige since it was considered to be Roman in origin; the Anglo-Saxon settlement which eventually became the city of Westminster was originally Lundenwic (now Aldwych, "old village").
Re: British Politics Guide
Posted: Tue May 14, 2024 9:25 am
by Raphael
Thank you!
Re: British Politics Guide
Posted: Tue May 14, 2024 10:47 am
by WeepingElf
London? Westminster? WTF? Historically, this conurbation should rather be known as
Ossulstone
Re: British Politics Guide
Posted: Tue May 14, 2024 12:39 pm
by Ketsuban
Even that name would arguably be outdated; the creation of Greater London in 1965 subsumed not just Ossulstone but the entirety of the county of Middlesex (the parts of which that were not within the Greater London boundary were transferred to the counties of Hertfordshire and Surrey).
Re: British Politics Guide
Posted: Tue May 14, 2024 4:09 pm
by zompist
Raphael wrote: ↑Tue May 14, 2024 5:19 am
Why is the collection of built-up areas that serves as the capital of the UK generally called "London" and not "Westminster"?
This would be an interesting philological study, though I suspect the answer would be "You have to call it something, and that something has always been London." And that in turn is because London is older: the City of London dates back before Alfred (i.e. 800s), and Westminster to the 1000s. (An abbey existed there earlier, but that's when the kings moved there.)
It's noticeable that
19th century maps call the conurbation "London", but
17th century English maps are labeled "London, Westminster, and Southwark." But even at that time foreigners called it London, as on
this German map.
The next step would probably be to look at literature to see what people who lived there called it. You can
search Shakespeare here; there are 8 references to Westminster (almost all referring to the abbey, where kings were crowned), 2 to Southwark, and 65 to London. So far as I can see, he refers to London exactly as we would, as the capital of England. For instance, a line from Henry VI is telling:
For, as I hear, the king is fled to London,
To call a present court of parliament.
Both king and parliament lived in Westminster, so it's significant that "London" is used here. Once you're out of town, the local distinctions didn't matter.
Re: British Politics Guide
Posted: Wed May 15, 2024 5:35 am
by Raphael
Wow, thank you for the work that went into that!
Re: British Politics Guide
Posted: Wed May 22, 2024 11:28 am
by Raphael
And the election has been set for July 4th. (IMO it's one of the more questionable features of the British system that the Prime Minister gets to make a campaign speech in the same announcement in which he says when the election is.)
Serious question: When do the summer vacations, err, I mean, holidays start in the UK?
Re: British Politics Guide
Posted: Wed May 22, 2024 12:10 pm
by Ketsuban
Depends on the council (and public schools keep their own timetable) but I checked the website for my local council and their summer term ends on the 24th of July. (Half-term is on the 27th of this month and goes through to the 3rd.)
Re: British Politics Guide
Posted: Wed May 22, 2024 12:20 pm
by Raphael
Ketsuban wrote: ↑Wed May 22, 2024 12:10 pm
Depends on the council (and public schools keep their own timetable) but I checked the website for my local council and their summer term ends on the 24th of July. (Half-term is on the 27th of this month and goes through to the 3rd.)
Thank you. I had been wondering if people might be kept from voting by being away from home on election day.