What can we do to change the minds of decision makers and people in general to actually do something about preparing for the forthcoming economic/energy crises (the ones after this one!)?
The Scottish National Party (SNP), Plaid Cymru and the Greens would demand for Labour to scrap Britain’s nuclear weapons programme as their price for supporting the party in a hung parliament.
In a joint press conference, the leaders of all three parties announced they would be prepared to prop up a minority Labour administration in Westminster but only if it were prepared not to renew Trident. They also intend to cooperate together if no party has a majority after next May’s election but would never back any form of Conservative-led administration.
So we have three potential "blocs" taking position in anticipation of a hung parliament in May:
(1) Green + SNP + PC, who want to woo labour, but with demands over nuclear disarmament.
(2) Tory + UKIP
(3) The liberal democrats, who are going to get slaughtered but we don't know quite how badly, who would probably prefer to get in bed with the tories again, even though they have already been slaughtered once for doing so.
The LDs can't get involved in another coalition with the tories if UKIP are also involved, and the tories would like to avoid coalition with the LDs even if the best other option is a minority government, but not if it means bloc (1) can form a larger minority government. In other words, the tories may be forced to choose either the LDs or UKIP as a coalition partner based on which of those two parties win the larger number of seats, because the rest of the arithmetic is so close if (1) forms a united bloc.
As a long-time watcher of politics who would like nothing more than watching the whole of westminster squirm, I think I'm rooting for the LDs to win about 20 seats, and for this to provide them with the balance of power between (1) and (2) above. That would be most amusing.
i think if they found themselves in that position, it could rip them asunder. The top brass in the LD's would likely, as you say, wish to go for a Tory coalition. But, I suspect there is a large portion of the rank and file who would baulk at the suggestion.
It makes sense for UKiP & Tories to get together - they're split by a whisker. But with our typical punch and judy politics, it wouldn't be fair, it's Labour's turn!
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
stevecook172001 wrote:i think if they found themselves in that position, it could rip them asunder.
Indeed. Followed by what?
I am imagining parliamentary experts from Italy drafted in as advisors.
Interesting you should say that! I was about to comment on your post in the other thread..
UndercoverElephant wrote:
emordnilap wrote:
This usually leads to unstable, short-lived governments and regular parties promising the earth in desperation.
We have an odd situation in the UK though, where two fundamental things have changed at the same time. Firstly it looks like the era of 2-party politics is over (i.e. it's getting harder and harder for either labour or tory to win an overall majority). Hung parliaments have historically led to unstable, short-lived governments, and to subsequent general elections well before a full term is up, but the second thing that has changed is a law designed to ensure fixed-term parliaments!
I don't think there is going to be a coalition if the next parliament is hung. I think we will see either the tories or the labour party trying to govern on their own, without a majority. It would then be very interesting if it turned out that that minority government couldn't get any legislation through.
Section 2 of the 2010 Fixed-term parliament act:
Section 2 of the Act also provides for two ways in which a general election can be held before the end of this five-year period:
If the House of Commons resolves "That this House has no confidence in Her Majesty's Government", an early general election is held, unless the House of Commons subsequently resolves "That this House has confidence in Her Majesty's Government". This second resolution must be made within fourteen days of the first.
If the House of Commons, with the support of two-thirds of its total membership (including vacant seats), resolves "That there shall be an early parliamentary general election".
In either of these two cases, the monarch (on the recommendation of the prime minister) appoints the date of the new election by proclamation. Parliament is then dissolved 17 working days before that date.
This is (obviously) untested legislation. I guess all the parties would have little choice but to vote for another election.
So basically we get Italy!! This could actually be quite an interesting new era..
Professionalize governance. Democracy can be and must be neutered, and an effective way of doing this is to insist that amateur, elected officials MUST take the advice of professional (read corporate) advisors. Expand current law to enforce this.
From here, an excellent series of articles, as near to predicting the future as it's possible to get.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
It's the 'read corporate' bit that is worrisome. It should not be a synonym for professional.
Have you had the good fortune & your usual good sense to read the articles in full Biff?
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
There were a lot of words that I skimmed to get the gist.
I had in mind 'professionalism' as finding some way to make government accept that climate scientists and drugs scientists and badger scientists and so on have to be taken seriously and not ignored for political expediency.
But, yeah, that's not exactly what Golem was talking about.
It's worth reading the three articles - one of those stories that absolutely everyone should read. However, skim/gist is fine for the converted.
It's probably worth bookmarking or even downloading the articles and reading them again in, say 10 or 15 years' time. As I say, if you could foretell the future, it looks like that is it.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
You're bloody telling me it's worth downloading them!
I've just read the first few paragraphs of the first article and it's dynamite. I will be digesting and consolidating the arguments contained in those articles, to be regurgitated at appropriate junctures.
this crisis is no longer primarily financial; it is now political. Any solution, no matter for whose benefit, is beyond the scope of financial ‘reform’ but will depend on radical political change. In my opinion, the era of reformist politics is over. The questions are: radical change in which political direction? in whose hands? and for whose benefit?
He's in many cases extrapolating trends and there's a feel of reality about everything he says because of this.
The peaking of oil production in the US; the dollar coming off the gold standard; the later oil crises.
Three 'events' which, to most people, are unrelated; many weren't even born at the time. Everything we despise about today's political, military and corporate dominance has stemmed from that period.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
With the passage of the 2015 federal budget bill, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon got lawmakers to repeal a key part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law and allow banks to use the savings accounts of ordinary Americans to gamble in the stock market on behalf of hedge funds, corporations and the rich.
A former senior Treasury official in the Obama administration told The Washington Post that the law restores the ability of banks to use the same practices that helped bring down the global economy in 2008. “This was the epicenter of the crisis,” the official said. “This is what brought AIG down, what brought Lehman Brothers down.”
But Wall Street is once again calling the tune, and Congress is dancing to it. The repeal of "push out" was accomplished with no committee hearings, no public testimony in favor or against, and no explicit votes on the provision.
Unbelievably, the repeal provision was taken, in large part word for word, from a memo written by lobbyists for Citibank. A tweet from Rep. Mark Takano, D-California, highlights sentences that are identical, showing how eerily similar the two documents are.
Rep. Kevin Yoder, R-Kansas, inserted the provision into the spending bill, with no debate or discussion. And when opponents got wind of it, banks pulled out the stops on lobbying. A source told Politico that Jamie Dimon, chairman of JPMorgan Chase, made calls directly to legislators to argue in favor of repeal of the "push out" rule.
So the stage is being set for another huge transfer of wealth from the 99% to the 1%. Probably when the shale bubble bursts, which if the oil price remains below $60/bbl for too long into 2015 I'm expecting to happen sometime in the middle of next year at the earliest.
It's worth reading the three articles - one of those stories that absolutely everyone should read. However, skim/gist is fine for the converted.
It's probably worth bookmarking or even downloading the articles and reading them again in, say 10 or 15 years' time. As I say, if you could foretell the future, it looks like that is it.
Have just spent the last couple of hours reading and re-reading said articles.
Pure Dynamite!
I'm ashamed to say that I was tickled by the phrase 'tyranny of the majority'.
If the sheeple knew what was coming down the corporate pipe, there'd be a revolution - or perhaps not.
Pure Dynamite!
