UK Politics: Welcome to the Age of the Boris

DeekyFun 2020-09-12 13:32:27 UTC #3123

I’d say yes, but then I’d have to stop screaming.

Zephro 2020-09-12 18:11:20 UTC #3124

At what point in the last 5 years has it not felt like that?

Sarfrin 2020-09-12 21:54:04 UTC #3125

I’d say it felt like being in a car with a reckless driver until the December election and COVID kicked in. Now the brakes have failed, we’re crashing through bushes at the side of the road and glimpsing a cliff edge mere yards beyond the end of them.

BillButNotBen 2021-01-25 13:06:58 UTC #3126

So is Brexit really going this badly?

I appreciate that the Guardian is unlikely to be fully neutral when it comes to Brexit, but it does seem like if the front pages weren’t dominated by Covid then they’d be dominated by stories of Brexit f-ups.

Sarfrin 2021-01-25 13:55:19 UTC #3127

It is. Fishermen, who they made such a show of protecting, are absolutely screwed. And the Telegraph is full of articles about eating local, seasonal produce (i.e. cabbages).

Vandelay 2021-01-25 17:37:40 UTC #3128

If there were any other government in power at the moment I doubt I would be even considering it, but part of me does suspect that there are some in power that are slightly relieved that Covid struck when it did. Getting attention away from the shit show of Brexit is likely a positive for many. Plus, it feels like the media (particularly BBC, but even places like Channel 4 News and The Guardian) are almost afraid to do stories on it and I strongly suspect they have realised how much of a turn off for a lot of people the Brexit arguments are.

Then, once things have settled a little and GDP suffers a few percentage points, a few well known businesses close as well as the hundreds that are unknown, the buck can all be passed onto Covid and the damage all those nasty lockdowns have done. Other countries are recovering better than we are, you say? Nah, you can’t compare them with us and our uniquely British Britishness!

Then it will be a race as to whether Northern Ireland or Scotland will leave the UK first, with whichever one going first rapidly accelerating the second, with Wales probably getting a few ideas to follow. Tories will no doubt kick up a fuss that they are losing plebs to lord over, but will soon rub their hands with glee as they realise that they are left with lots of Little Englanders to worship them and they don’t have to worry about those rebellious Celts voting for other parties any more. The already slim possibilities of another party ever getting into power will slip away.

Maybe I’m being too pessimistic and something will finally crack to stop the utter shambles in government right now, but with such a strong majority and zero chance of them being ousted for another 4 years, I can’t see us being anything but fucked.

The only slight chance I feel we have is if all the left/centre parties join together and step candidates aside in places where they are likely to be third or lower at the next election, whilst running on a platform to reform our voting system.

Sarfrin 2021-01-25 17:41:30 UTC #3129

God, I hope so. England on its own would quickly descend into a ransacked shell that somehow still voted for the people who ransacked it.

BillButNotBen 2021-03-09 11:29:46 UTC #3130

I don’t know if this counts as politics exactly, but the UK seems to be intent on Fubar-ing their image on multiple levels, the latest and greatest being the entire Meghan saga.

I don’t know people’s attitudes to it in the UK, and I of course can’t speak for everyone outside the UK, but it seems like such a massive PR own goal.

It was so good for the royal family’s image and the UK’s image when she joined… and now it’s making them both look terrible. Not sure how much actual racism played into it, above and beyond the usual factors of the UK Press being evil vindictive gits. But whether it did or not, it’s a massive own goal.

Vandelay 2021-03-09 14:10:23 UTC #3131

Not sure on actual opinion, but my anecdotal and vox pop evidence suggest quite a mix of opinions in the UK. No matter which side people are on, most would agree the press is full of shits, but we’ve known that for decades and no one has bothered to do anything really meaningful about it (likely as there are too many people that enjoy consuming the drival and because politicians are too scared to bite the hand that feeds them). In general though, I believe it follows the usual lines of (vocal) old people still love the royal family and Meghan is evil, whilst (vocal) young people see it as more fuel for getting rid of the lot of them, whether they have sympathy for the Sussexs or not.

As for racism comments, that’s another thing we’ve known for a long time. Mostly the stories are centred around Prince Philip making inappropriate comments, with the telling of these presented where he is the comedy elderly relative that says things that would be barely acceptable 50 years ago, but he’s just a cheeky chap really. The institution is so much in a bubble that I expect his attitude is very much the standard amongst them, with the others just knowing to keep their mouths shut.

As for what will come from it all, probably not much. The Royal Family has its diehard fans that will continue to love them through thick and thin. Another large proportion loves to read all the gossip they produce. As with most things, the largest proportion are those that don’t really care that much about them either way. Most people do like the Queen though and whilst she is on the throne I can’t see much changing with them (whether that will stay true when Charles takes over will be another matter).

Sarfrin 2021-03-09 20:43:50 UTC #3132

It’s not that simple. There are plenty of older people who can see what the royal family are like. Closing ranks around that dirty old man Andrew hasn’t helped them at all.

Vandelay 2021-03-09 21:49:31 UTC #3133

Of course. I wouldn’t suggest that it was as clean cut as that. I’m sure that there are plenty of older people that would be calling for them to be dissolved, just as I’m sure there are plenty of young people that are appalled that H&M would dare speak out about their family.

However, as with Brexit and Tory support, I would think that grouping opinion by age would show the divide far more than almost any other grouping (just an assumption though, I don’t have any evidence to back that up).

Edit - polling here would suggest that is the case - https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/03/09/snap-poll-post-interview-harry-meghan

MiniMatt 2021-03-09 22:51:19 UTC #3134

My instinct says this is a very large proportion. It’s posh Kardashians innit?

Not sure when you were last on this sceptred, septic, isle but over the last ~3 decades I’ve been popping in and out (and was paying attention) I honestly don’t think general attitudes have changed. Most don’t have strong feelings either way, wish them well as human beings, have a vague notion they’re probably good for tourism or something, think they probably cost a bit too much.

The mad royalists used to be little old ladies with all the commerorative plate sets - they’ve kinda died off and the rabidly pro queenie brigade now seem to be the soundbite gammon set (yer Farages, yer Morgans, and - yes - yer Johnsons) who don’t necessarily believe anything they say, they’re just interested in stoking a culture war (“war on woke” is big over here atm). But wheras stoking a culture war for political gain is profitable if you fight over slave trader statues (Our GREAT British Heritage/History/Empire etc) because there’s already a cesspit of angry white electorate to dog whistle, it doesn’t get the same traction when the plebian masses are urged to rally around their aristocratic overlords - Youtube videos decrying toppling of slave trader statues are everywhere, encouraging subservience to the crown not so much.

The global damage to the UK’s image, from my reading of NZ colleagues (remote - should have been over there but for The Plague), German former colleagues now friends, and US friends & relatives, comes from Brexit. Overwhelmingly bafflement and piss taking - in different circles I imagine the country’s word-is-our-bond/reputation for honest pragmatism has taken a hefty knock too. The US contingent do seem a little shocked that the royal family might be a teensy bit racist, and by extension the UK might be a teensy bit racist. The US contingent has consistently underestimated their own country’s general level of racism. The UK contingent (of which I include myself) have done likewise - seriously I thought we had this shit sorted in the fucking nineties and we just had to wait for the Prince Philips of the world to die.

LexW 2021-03-09 23:49:38 UTC #3135

Opinion on the royals is deeply fragmented post-Diana, and after sons grew up and got married and so on.

I’m surprised anyone is surprised they might be racist. Given their age I assumed they’d be way more racist than they seem to be here.

I don’t think there are, really, actually. But equally that doesn’t mean that they want the royals dissolved. I feel like actual opposition to the royals in general peaked in the Diana and immediate post-Diana era, and the people calling for it most loudly were mostly older Gen-Xers (and some Boomers who’d always believed in it). If anything was going to happen, it was then, but the royals got a reprieve with “Cool Britannia” and so on.

However, as @Sarfrin says, the Andrew thing has really not helped them. Dude is pretty clearly a sex-offender (the Epstein stuff is just icing on the cake of other things he’s done) among countless other nasty businesses he’s been involved in (illegal arms dealing, for example).

Nor has stuff like hanging out with Saudi and similar psychopaths, given they’ve been outing themselves re: how nuts they are.

This is just another blow for them. I don’t think we’ll see a push towards getting rid of them whilst the Tories are in charge, less because they love them and more because they’re afraid of what other demons that might unleash. It would also require constitutional change of a fairly serious nature that could actually endanger the country. Right now, the Queen/King can just not sign stuff they’re supposed to sign, and cause a constitutional crisis. It’s rumoured that it nearly happened with Johnson’s fuck-around bullshit with the pro-roguing. The current Tory leadership wants to do away with absolutely any check, no matter how slight on governmental power, and regards stuff like parliament as an obstruction - they certainly regard the Royals as such. I think they’d very much like to get the Royals out of that loop entirely, but they’re scared to.

Skalpadda 2021-03-10 01:11:28 UTC #3136

The idea of royals is so weird. I hate the idea of inherited power and privilege, but I hate the idea of vesting actual power in a single state representative even more. At least our royals mostly keep to themselves and apart from the odd gaffe haven’t done anything truly horrible (that we know of), but it’s still very yucky.

BillButNotBen 2021-03-10 04:38:21 UTC #3137

I think people tend to view other countries and their institutions as kind of one-and-the-same. Of course, it’s almost always not completely true, but I feel like a lot of people outside the UK see things like Brexit and the Meghan stuff as all just being representative of the UK as a whole… and as such the UK’s reputation as a whole is getting rather tarnished (imho).

The problem with this is that, despite what a lot of elderly people in the UK and UK rags think, the UK isn’t all that important globally… but we’ve somehow convinced ourselves and others that we are. We’ve had an advantage in that due to the simple fact of Language, but we also somehow managed to maintain a kind of ‘image’ for the past few decades.
Recently, not so much.

I imagine, maybe wrongly, that Meghan got targeted by the press more because they didn’t play ball, and because of being an easy target due to being an outsider, a woman and worst of all American.

The thing I kinda missed, not being there, is how the press’s opinion seemed to go so quickly from ‘She’s a refreshing breath of fresh air and the savior of the stuffy monarchy’ to ‘We hate her’ when she didn’t appear to do anything particularly wrong. Other than the aforementioned not playing ball. I guess that was probably enough for the press… and the problem is that the UK press can have such an impact on public opinion by sheer weight of repetition.

I think I saw figures roughly along the lines of 40% of brits being against her after the interview and 20% for her. The problem being that the figures outside the UK are probably much more like 99% for her.

Vandelay 2021-03-10 09:57:06 UTC #3138

I just edited my earlier post with a link to polling and your numbers are correct.

As I suspected, age is a big signifier as to what opinion you have (as is political leanings, although that is basically one in the same with age now).

I don’t think you are wrong about opinion shifting on her when she didn’t play ball. Events yesterday would also suggest that Piers Morgan, who has been one of the ring leaders of the mob, had a personal vendetta against. I have no doubt he spurred on other media friends of his.

The worst part of it all is that it is just another symptom of this seemingly terminal condition that Britain has at the moment. As you say, a sizable proportion of people are so desperately clinging onto this belief that Britain is the centre of the world and that everyone should bow to our institutions.

We are increasingly becoming a more insular country and I don’t see that changing much. Both of our parties are now chasing the nationalism vote, predominantly through old fashioned symbols rather than actually anything meaningful or forward thinking, with the Royal Family being one such rather pointless symbol. We have soon to be launched news channels that are openly promoting themselves as our Fox news, that will no doubt be aiming to lower the standard of debate even lower than they already are. We have one of the worst pandemic responses in the world, but any suggestion that other countries have fared better is met with people saying that comparisons can’t be made and that our government are doing their best.

Then we have our clown in chief heading up the whole sorry bunch of us. The world sees him as the fool he is, but large swathes of the Great British public seem to be blind to his incapability. I don’t think there is any greater insight into how out of step Britain is with so many other nations that we should be standing alongside. In many ways, I see Johnson as worse than Trump. He doesn’t need to incite any coups, as any election held would likely be a big landslide in his favour, due to our election system. He is a man that has been incapable of holding onto any job… except the most important job in the country.

Sarfrin 2021-03-10 12:31:52 UTC #3139

Definitely. He has all Trump’s worst instincts but is clever enough to keep them at least thinly disguised. We are completely fucked.

Rath 2021-03-10 18:03:16 UTC #3140

I have this horrible feeling that Piers Morgan is about to become involved in also-a-cunt Laurence Fox’s campaign for Lord Mayor of London and I find myself involuntarily shuddering.

Sarfrin 2021-03-10 19:46:10 UTC #3141

Like some horrific mayoral buddy cop duo, Gammon and Cokehead.

Skalpadda 2021-03-16 05:54:37 UTC #3142

Someone explain to me how this isn’t as terrible as it seems.

Some of the new police powers are draconian, they said, cautioning that the new law would also increase penalties for those breaching police conditions on protests and the ease with which they can be found to have done so.

The part of the bill that has caused opponents most concern will give the home secretary powers to create laws to define “serious disruption” to communities and organisations, which police can then rely on to impose conditions on protests.

Sounds like a law that gives the ruling party power to make new laws at a whim. That’s never gone wrong.

It denied that freedom of expression would be undermined by the bill, saying: “The majority of protests in the England and Wales are lawful and will be unaffected by these changes. These measures will balance the rights of protesters with the rights of others to go about their business unhindered. They will achieve this by enabling the police to better manage highly disruptive protests.”

“Yes yes, please have your little protest, but have it silently. In fact, why don’t you just go about your day as a good citizen and protest on the inside.”

The Conservatives hit back, with the party’s co-chair Amanda Milling claiming that voting against the bill would block “tough new laws to keep people safe, including many vital measures to protect women from violent criminals” and “tougher sentences for child murderers and sex offenders”.

Why are all those things in a single bill?