What's wrong with politics ?

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  • I realize this is getting hopelessly off-topic, but if people are interested in the causes of wrongful convictions there is a lot of good reading available here. This link will take you directly to the Table of Contents of the latest report.
  • Telford wrote: »
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    Telford wrote: »
    Police Officers do not gain any satisfaction from the conviction of people who they know to be innocent.

    This is demonstrably false, simply by the fact that we have legislation in place to try and prevent it from happening. Added to which, the 'usual suspects' scenario doesn't mean the defendant is innocent - it means they're guilty of other, similar crimes, so it doesn't matter if they did this particular one or not: they're a criminal, and deserve to be locked up.

    Your first statement is a slur on all honest hard working Police officers

    No, it's a damning indictment of the way it used to be, that 'honest hard working Police officers' had to be kept in check by primary legislation to stop them fitting up members of the public for crimes they didn't commit. This is also the reason why the CPS is independent of the police, so that the prosecutors are at arm's length from the arresting officers, and are answerable to an entirely different command structure.

    I'm sorry, but you literally don't know how this works.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    No, no - surely it's we who are missing the point, and not understanding how it all works...
    :confused:

    I was involved personally (as a witness) in a case where the CPS was very reluctant to go to court. I gathered that they were not at all happy with the evidence put forward by the police, so yes, the safeguard worked.
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    NOprophet_NØprofit: Consensus based decision making in politics is foreign to western European traditions.

    I'm not sure how you come to this conclusion given the case of the Federal Republic of Germany, whose constitution is designed to maximise the need for consensual decision-making, as is demonstrated in practice. Switzerland is another example, and the Scandinavian states are not too far behind compared to the adversarial politics of the United Kingdom.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Kwesi wrote: »
    I'm not sure how you come to this conclusion given the case of the Federal Republic of Germany, whose constitution is designed to maximise the need for consensual decision-making, as is demonstrated in practice. Switzerland is another example, and the Scandinavian states are not too far behind compared to the adversarial politics of the United Kingdom.

    I think that's probably true of most Western European traditions other than the UK. The UK comes closest to a 2 party system; the multi-party systems in the other countries encourages a lot of give and take.
  • I wonder if @NOprophet_NØprofit was simply trying to get this thread back on track?

    FWIW, I agree with @Kwesi and @Gee D - the 'Yah! Boo! Sucks!' political system in this country is well past its sell-by date...
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    I think we have to be careful not to be overly enthusiastic about consensus political cultures because the harmony of consensus can involve the toleration of prejudice and injustice, the papering over of deep fissures. The world was much nicer, wasn't it, when there was a culture in which women and ethnic minorities knew their place and gays remained in the closet? There is much to rage about. In many ways the Trump phenomenon is a recognition that the complacency of the forces he represents are resentful that the 1950s Walt Disney World where their values were hardly questioned are fast crumbling. Catastrophic events are as much part of the evolutionary process as the slower pace of natural selection, and the same it true of social progress.
  • BullfrogBullfrog Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    Russ wrote: »
    Bullfrog wrote: »
    Politics means having to negotiate with other people who don't share your interests.

    Well, no.

    If decisions were made by a citizens' jury who heard evidence and then had to reach a consensus on what to do, that would involve negotiating. Which means a compromise - you get some of what you want, they get some of what they want.

    Politics is getting the power to not have to negotiate. By making promises you can't keep, being selective with the truth, appealing to tribal loyalties, etc etc.

    Negotiation is treating those who disagree with you as people with whom you reach an understanding. Politics is drumming up a bigger gang so as to take what you want and those who disagree can go screw themselves.

    Doc Tor said it:
    I've no interest in consensus with a fascist... ...if I get more votes than they do, then the proposition is carried.

    I'd say these are two different forms of politics, and it's in the interest of fascists to try to insist that violence and force are the only real "politics" there is.

    Of course, refusing to come to the table and talk with a disingenuous monster is itself a perfectly respectable negotiation tactic.
  • Gee D wrote: »
    Kwesi wrote: »
    I'm not sure how you come to this conclusion given the case of the Federal Republic of Germany, whose constitution is designed to maximise the need for consensual decision-making, as is demonstrated in practice. Switzerland is another example, and the Scandinavian states are not too far behind compared to the adversarial politics of the United Kingdom.

    I think that's probably true of most Western European traditions other than the UK. The UK comes closest to a 2 party system; the multi-party systems in the other countries encourages a lot of give and take.

    How far back does this tradition go? I get the impression that these consensus building governments are pretty new in terms of human history.

    Then again, universal suffrage is also pretty new by those standards.
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Bullfrog: The UK comes closest to a 2 party system

    Maybe so, but the two-party system in the UK since 1885, when 60 per cent of adult males were enfranchised has been less dominant than often assumed. Between 1885 and 1918 there were four important factions, the Gladstonian Liberals, the Irish Nationalists (80 seats), Liberal Unionists (from 1886), and the Conservatives, and from 1906 the Labour Party had a small but important collection of seats. In the 1920s there were two Labour administrations dependent on Liberal support. From 1931-1940 there was a dominant party system (A Conservative-dominated National Government), from 1945-1964 there was a two-party system, but the 1964-66 Labour government and its successor, Feb 1974-1979, was dependent on deals with the Liberals. From 1979-2010 Labour and the Conservatives shared the spoils, but there was a Conservative-Liberal coalition, 2010-15, and from 2017-2019 a Conservative government reliant on the DUP. The major breakthrough of the SNP in 2015 now makes it unlikely that Labour could form an administration without backing from other parties. Thus, since 1885, which marked the emergence of a modern party system, only between 1945 and 1964 and 1979-1910 has the UK had a two-party system: 50 out of 135 years.
  • Any company entirely run by the marketing department will fail. That's what the UK is run by at the moment, and it will fail. No thought, no integrity, no willingness to do the essential that mightnot be immediately popular and to argue why this might be needed. Only "give them what they want", which is marketing speak, not real life.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Bullfrog said:
    I'd say these are two different forms of politics, and it's in the interest of fascists to try to insist that violence and force are the only real "politics" there is.

    Trying to get a better understanding of the various types of politics (or meanings of "politics") is the question I'm asking.

    Negotiation might be described as "the art of the deal"... I maintain that in 2016 a vote for the author of that particular screed was in a sense a vote against politics and politicians.

    I can't help but consider a system whereby the bigger gang triumphs electorally is better than a system where the bigger and better-armed gang triumphs by violence and force. Nevertheless there's a clear parallel...


  • Kwesi wrote: »
    Bullfrog: The UK comes closest to a 2 party system

    Maybe so, but the two-party system in the UK since 1885, when 60 per cent of adult males were enfranchised has been less dominant than often assumed. Between 1885 and 1918 there were four important factions, the Gladstonian Liberals, the Irish Nationalists (80 seats), Liberal Unionists (from 1886), and the Conservatives, and from 1906 the Labour Party had a small but important collection of seats. In the 1920s there were two Labour administrations dependent on Liberal support. From 1931-1940 there was a dominant party system (A Conservative-dominated National Government), from 1945-1964 there was a two-party system, but the 1964-66 Labour government and its successor, Feb 1974-1979, was dependent on deals with the Liberals. From 1979-2010 Labour and the Conservatives shared the spoils, but there was a Conservative-Liberal coalition, 2010-15, and from 2017-2019 a Conservative government reliant on the DUP. The major breakthrough of the SNP in 2015 now makes it unlikely that Labour could form an administration without backing from other parties. Thus, since 1885, which marked the emergence of a modern party system, only between 1945 and 1964 and 1979-1910 has the UK had a two-party system: 50 out of 135 years.
    When did the UK last go into a general election with more than 2 parties having a chance of winning ?
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Telford: When did the UK last go into a general election with more than 2 parties having a chance of winning ?

    I think the question should be when did more than one party go into a UK general election with the realistic chance of winning outright and governing alone without having to come to an arrangement with another party or parties, though the question is more properly addressed to the outcome of elections. (For what it's worth, I think 1992 was the last election in which two parties had reasonable chances of winning outright).


  • Russ wrote: »
    Bullfrog said:
    I'd say these are two different forms of politics, and it's in the interest of fascists to try to insist that violence and force are the only real "politics" there is.

    Trying to get a better understanding of the various types of politics (or meanings of "politics") is the question I'm asking.

    Negotiation might be described as "the art of the deal"... I maintain that in 2016 a vote for the author of that particular screed was in a sense a vote against politics and politicians.

    I can't help but consider a system whereby the bigger gang triumphs electorally is better than a system where the bigger and better-armed gang triumphs by violence and force. Nevertheless there's a clear parallel...


    If I can say so without undue disrespect, as a long term student of policy and politics, I think that people who think Donald Trump isn't a politician fail to understand politics. They hate the idea of having to deal fairly or honestly, and have basically given up on any process of fair or honest dealing that doesn't entrench their own peculiar sense of privilege. They'd rather have a thug who will simply bully the rest of the country into following a plan that is supposedly in their interests.

    I try to respect people, honestly, but that's a POV that I do not give the dignity of "reasonable." It's ignorance.

    If anyone wants to try to sell me on a more charitable interpretation of Trumpism...I can try to hear it, but I have probably heard it and found it wanting, having had these conversations with his supporters in various ways.
  • Kwesi wrote: »
    Bullfrog: The UK comes closest to a 2 party system

    Maybe so, but the two-party system in the UK since 1885, when 60 per cent of adult males were enfranchised has been less dominant than often assumed. Between 1885 and 1918 there were four important factions, the Gladstonian Liberals, the Irish Nationalists (80 seats), Liberal Unionists (from 1886), and the Conservatives, and from 1906 the Labour Party had a small but important collection of seats. In the 1920s there were two Labour administrations dependent on Liberal support. From 1931-1940 there was a dominant party system (A Conservative-dominated National Government), from 1945-1964 there was a two-party system, but the 1964-66 Labour government and its successor, Feb 1974-1979, was dependent on deals with the Liberals. From 1979-2010 Labour and the Conservatives shared the spoils, but there was a Conservative-Liberal coalition, 2010-15, and from 2017-2019 a Conservative government reliant on the DUP. The major breakthrough of the SNP in 2015 now makes it unlikely that Labour could form an administration without backing from other parties. Thus, since 1885, which marked the emergence of a modern party system, only between 1945 and 1964 and 1979-1910 has the UK had a two-party system: 50 out of 135 years.

    That wasn't me, but thanks for the information. I don't know a ton about European politics.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Kwesi wrote: »
    Bullfrog: The UK comes closest to a 2 party system

    Maybe so, but the two-party system in the UK since 1885, when 60 per cent of adult males were enfranchised has been less dominant than often assumed. Between 1885 and 1918 there were four important factions, the Gladstonian Liberals, the Irish Nationalists (80 seats), Liberal Unionists (from 1886), and the Conservatives, and from 1906 the Labour Party had a small but important collection of seats. In the 1920s there were two Labour administrations dependent on Liberal support. From 1931-1940 there was a dominant party system (A Conservative-dominated National Government), from 1945-1964 there was a two-party system, but the 1964-66 Labour government and its successor, Feb 1974-1979, was dependent on deals with the Liberals. From 1979-2010 Labour and the Conservatives shared the spoils, but there was a Conservative-Liberal coalition, 2010-15, and from 2017-2019 a Conservative government reliant on the DUP. The major breakthrough of the SNP in 2015 now makes it unlikely that Labour could form an administration without backing from other parties. Thus, since 1885, which marked the emergence of a modern party system, only between 1945 and 1964 and 1979-1910 has the UK had a two-party system: 50 out of 135 years.

    That's why I very carefully said it comes closest, rather than saying it has a 2 party system.
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Gee D That's why I very carefully said it comes closest, rather than saying it has a 2 party system.

    Which was why I said, "Maybe so". Perhaps, I should have recognised your qualification more overtly. I apologise for not doing so. My remarks were intended to point out that the UK two-party system has been much less secure than is often assumed, building on rather than challenging your observation.

  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Thanks for the clarification. If you travel back in time from your starting point, the position becomes more and more fluid.
  • There are of course countries that arguably have a one-party system, and yet are kind-of-democratic, in that other parties could in principle form a government although they seldom or never do. Japan and South Africa might qualify here.
  • So might Scotland, come independence...
    :naughty:
  • Alan said IIRC not too long ago that following independence the SNP would lose its Raison D'etre and Scottish politics would become much more multi-party again.
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    TurquoiseTastic: There are of course countries that arguably have a one-party system, and yet are kind-of-democratic, in that other parties could in principle form a government although they seldom or never do. Japan and South Africa might qualify here.

    In a democratic context such party systems would be classified as Dominant Party Systems.
  • Alan said IIRC not too long ago that following independence the SNP would lose its Raison D'etre and Scottish politics would become much more multi-party again.

    Yes, fair point. I hadn't thought of that...but I can't see many Scots ever again trusting the Conservative Party as far they could throw it.

    Still, that would leave room for the LibDems, Labour, and Greens, maybe?

  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    Yes, fair point. I hadn't thought of that...but I can't see many Scots ever again trusting the Conservative Party as far they could throw it.

    Still, that would leave room for the LibDems, Labour, and Greens, maybe?
    I think the Scottish Conservatives have more seats than all the non-SNP parties in Scotland put together.
    I think the SNP have currently moved into the same ideological space as Labour except Labour are unionist. No doubt Scottish party workers could tell me all the ways in which their party policies are different, but for people who aren't interested in policy detail there's not much there. I don't see Labour finding any clear water from the SNP in an independent Scotland unless the SNP decide to veer conservative. The Lib Dems look better positioned to win back their niche as first choice for a protest vote. The Greens will remain the Greens. The Scottish Conservatives have a clear ideological space to sit in and nobody else is likely to fill it. Ruth Davidson did a good job of positioning the party as Conservative but not insane.
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    BishopsFinger:....... but I can't see many Scots ever again trusting the Conservative Party as far they could throw it.

    Well, I can! Indeed, independence may be the salvation of the centre-right in Scottish politics, because taxes and borrowing will need to increase to cover the fiscal gap which currently exists between public spending and taxes raised within Scotland, if severe austerity is to be avoided. That is before the issues of which currency to adopt is addressed and any preparations to adopt the Euro as part of. accession to the European Union are instituted. On the left the SNP will be exposed to Labour by the cuts and on the right to increases in tax rates. In an age of austerity the right are the most likely winners as voters seek to protect their diminishing public and private resources.
  • Dafyd wrote: »
    Yes, fair point. I hadn't thought of that...but I can't see many Scots ever again trusting the Conservative Party as far they could throw it.

    Still, that would leave room for the LibDems, Labour, and Greens, maybe?
    I think the Scottish Conservatives have more seats than all the non-SNP parties in Scotland put together.

    Not quite:
    https://parliament.scot/msps/12450.aspx

    Yes, it may be that the saner Scottish version of *conservatism*, unlike the batshit-crazy English version, would give the SNP a run for their money after independence.


  • Kwesi wrote: »
    The major breakthrough of the SNP in 2015 now makes it unlikely that Labour could form an administration without backing from other parties.

    I think that's quite a strong statement. Scotland has 59 MPs out of the 650 seats available. Even if they all went SNP (and it seems unlikely that significant Labour success in England wouldn't be accompanied by at least some Labour victories in Scotland), Labour could still win. Blair in 1997 and 2001 would have had a majority even if Scotland had entirely voted SNP.

  • Kwesi wrote: »
    I think the question should be when did more than one party go into a UK general election with the realistic chance of winning outright and governing alone without having to come to an arrangement with another party or parties

    2017.

    May thought she was on a winner, and was going to increase her majority. Labour's vote share in the polls was increasing so rapidly as the election approached, that it wouldn't have taken much to shift things to an overall Labour victory.

    In the end, of course, nobody won.
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Leorning Cniht: ... it wouldn't have taken much to shift things to an overall Labour victory.

    Labour were 64 seats short of an overall majority in 2017, though only 2.4 per cent behind the Conservatives in vote-share. Had Labour won most of the 56 seats that fell to the SNP, which were mostly ex-Labour, the prospect of the party entering the contest with a hope of winning would have been more convincing. I think, though, the two-party thesis is about government-formation i.e. the consequences of the contest for the creation of a parliamentary majority rather than guesses regarding possible outcomes. On that measure, I think we are in agreement.

  • In the end, of course, nobody won.

    And we all lost.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Bullfrog wrote: »
    I think that people who think Donald Trump isn't a politician fail to understand politics. They hate the idea of having to deal fairly or honestly, and have basically given up on any process of fair or honest dealing that doesn't entrench their own peculiar sense of privilege. They'd rather have a thug who will simply bully the rest of the country into following a plan that is supposedly in their interests.

    I try to respect people, honestly, but that's a POV that I do not give the dignity of "reasonable." It's ignorance.

    If anyone wants to try to sell me on a more charitable interpretation of Trumpism...I can try to hear it, but I have probably heard it and found it wanting, having had these conversations with his supporters in various ways.

    I think you're saying that however much DT has acted in deal-making mode in international relations, that isn't how he has operated in terms of domestic politics. And that in that sphere, "bully" would be a more apt description.

    I don't disagree.

    I'm not a Trump supporter - you can say what you like about him as far as I'm concerned.

    But I'm interested in what politics is and why it has a bad name. And why you think it is an error to see him as "not a politician", given that he stood for president as a "celebrity candidate" with no previous experience of holding political office, but only a TV persona.

    As well as interested in when using all the power that the system gives you becomes "bullying".

    Doesn't every party member who successfully campaigns for a candidate want that person when in office to deliver on the things the party wants ? Rather than compromising with the opposition ?

    You might say that power means not having to listen to and work with those who disagree with you...
  • TelfordTelford Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    Alan said IIRC not too long ago that following independence the SNP would lose its Raison D'etre and Scottish politics would become much more multi-party again.

    If Sootland becomes indendent, their politics will no longer have any interest for me.


  • Telford wrote: »
    Alan said IIRC not too long ago that following independence the SNP would lose its Raison D'etre and Scottish politics would become much more multi-party again.

    If Sootland becomes indendent, their politics will no longer have any interest for me.


    Speaking as someone from Sootland who is in favour of indendent-ence , this statement fails to fill me with alarm.

    I suspect there are a fair number of SNP voters who view them as having similar policies but are more competent and relatable than Labour; and whilst they may be ambivalent about Scottish independence as a general concept, view it as the only way to escape the toxic Tory rule of the UK, which alternately abuses and ignores Scotland and its people in policy decisions.
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    Telford wrote: »
    If Sootland becomes indendent, their politics will no longer have any interest for me.
    Why should anyone in Scotland care whether their politics is of any interest to you?

  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    Sootland is clearly the country in Dickens' Hard Times, and the capital is no doubt his delightful (not) invention, Coketown...

    But I rather fear that the politics of an independent Sootland will be of concern, and interest, to those of us south of the border, as we'll be stuck with the blasted Selfservatives for ever...
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Bishops Finger:. But I rather fear that the politics of an independent Sootland will be of concern, and interest, to those of us south of the border, as we'll be stuck with the blasted Selfservatives for ever...

    It is one of the ironies of Irish independence, that whereas its former 80 Home Rulers had enabled Gladstonian Liberalism to pursue progressive policies, 1885-1918, it condemned Ireland to Catholic reaction in the South, Protestant ascendancy in the North, and shifted the political terms of trade to the Conservatives in Britain. The reason is that progressive politics in the UK rests heavily on taxation and public spending directing resources from London and the South East. My guess is that an independent Scotland would find it impossible to sustain the welfare state its proponents desire and assume.
  • Dafyd wrote: »
    Telford wrote: »
    If Sootland becomes indendent, their politics will no longer have any interest for me.
    Why should anyone in Scotland care whether their politics is of any interest to you?

    I wouldn't expect them to the same way as I wouldn't expect anyone in Japan to care what I think.

  • Sootland is clearly the country in Dickens' Hard Times, and the capital is no doubt his delightful (not) invention, Coketown...

    But I rather fear that the politics of an independent Sootland will be of concern, and interest, to those of us south of the border, as we'll be stuck with the blasted Selfservatives for ever...

    Not if the other parties get their act together

  • Ah well - we can but hope...
  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    Sootland is clearly the country in Dickens' Hard Times, and the capital is no doubt his delightful (not) invention, Coketown...

    But I rather fear that the politics of an independent Sootland will be of concern, and interest, to those of us south of the border, as we'll be stuck with the blasted Selfservatives for ever...

    BF as you well know Hard Times is set in Lancashire after Dickens went to see the strike and lock out in my home town of Preston.
    Don’t take Hard Times away from us. We need all the mentions we can get.
  • Very true, but Sootland sounds just so Dickensian...
    :innocent:
  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    True
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Very true, but Sootland sounds just so Dickensian...
    :innocent:

    My first visit to Scotland was in the early 1960's, when we went by train from London to Glasgow, stayed overnight, and then on to Fort William the next. Glasgow even then looked Dickensian, smoky and grimy, rows and rows of terraces packed up on each other, and people not very well dressed.
  • Gee D wrote: »
    Very true, but Sootland sounds just so Dickensian...
    :innocent:

    My first visit to Scotland was in the early 1960's, when we went by train from London to Glasgow, stayed overnight, and then on to Fort William the next. Glasgow even then looked Dickensian, smoky and grimy, rows and rows of terraces packed up on each other, and people not very well dressed.

    West Yorkshire and East Lancashire still look like that now. :p
  • Kwesi wrote: »
    My guess is that an independent Scotland would find it impossible to sustain the welfare state its proponents desire and assume.

    I doubt that an independent Scotland would manage to maintain its current level of welfare state, never mind the level some of its proponents suggest.

    I'm still in favour of Scottish independence of course, but that's because I believe self-determination is more important than any economic consequences thereof.
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Marvin The Martian: I doubt that an independent Scotland would manage to maintain its current level of welfare state, never mind the level some of its proponents suggest.

    Spot on!

    Marvin The Martian:
    I'm still in favour of Scottish independence of course, but that's because I believe self-determination is more important than any economic consequences thereof.

    I thought your reason was going to be that it would benefit England to be relieved of a financial liability, as was the consequence of Irish independence, now that the strategic importance of Scotland to English security has largely diminished.

    Regarding your belief in self-determination, as I have mentioned elsewhere, it all depends on how one defines the collective "self" that is doing the determining. From a democratic perspective, do you think it right that southern Scotland should be allowed to remain in the UK if its electors wished to remain in the United Kingdom? It is, of course, not inconceivable it could include Edinburgh!
  • Or equally, Berwick-upon-Tweed might well prefer to become part of a new independent Scotland rather than being part of England. Should they be allowed to do do?
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Yes!
  • Given the shambles that exists south of Berwick, yes, I think they should...
    :wink:

    It's highly unlikely, however, that a majority of voters in southern Scotland would want to stay in English Brexshitland.

    But who knows?
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