1. This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.

General News May asks Queen permission to form government despite losses

Discussion in 'Current Events, World News, & LGBT News' started by Aussie792, Jun 9, 2017.

  1. Aussie792

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Apr 5, 2013
    Messages:
    3,317
    Likes Received:
    62
    Location:
    Australia
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    Theresa May, Britain's prime minister, who lost the majority she inherited from David Cameron's Conservative victory in 2015 in this month's snap election, has visited the Queen to ask permission to form a government.

    I am disappointed at the instability this will pose, as well as the success of an opposition leader with a history of extraordinary tolerance for antisemitism and terror, spending promises which amount to expensive middle-class welfare and an inability to cooperate with colleagues even worse than May's infamous antisocial and centralised management style.

    Nonetheless, there are some small positives from the election. Mrs May will not be able to pursue a radically harsh Brexit, as David Davis has already conceded in admitting to the possibility of a Brexit within the EU single market. It will mean that the prime minister will be more consultative and gives the Tories a chance to reflect on a hubris which, even if they do deserve not to take Corbyn's policies seriously, seem out of touch with the British public.

    It will also give Labour time to decide whether to continue its policies of turning Britain into Cuba without the sun or return to policies which have been more consistent with Britain's economic needs and modern character.
     
  2. Haru

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Jun 5, 2017
    Messages:
    22
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    Ohio
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    Jeb Bush would of won in a landslide.
     
  3. KyleD

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Jul 4, 2013
    Messages:
    1,094
    Likes Received:
    25
    Location:
    Spain
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Family only
    Germany is a Socialist country and has the strongest economy in Europe so that wouldn't be so bad.

    Nevertheless, Cuba is the most successful country in the Caribbean.

    So what's the issue?
     
    #3 KyleD, Jun 9, 2017
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2017
  4. PatrickUK

    Advisor Full Member

    Joined:
    Feb 25, 2014
    Messages:
    6,943
    Likes Received:
    2,359
    Location:
    England
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    Making an arrangement with the DUP is an incredibly bad move that could have serious consequences for power sharing in Northern Ireland. Until now, governments of both colours have taken a neutral position when it comes to Northern Ireland politics and even John Major refused to broker a deal with the Unionists in the last months of his administration, preferring to limp on until the 1997 election.

    With a combined majority of two seats, the Whips will have to work incredibly hard to keep this going for anything close to five years. I can't even see it lasting until the end of the Brexit negotiations.
     
  5. Reciprocal

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Apr 8, 2015
    Messages:
    1,001
    Likes Received:
    2
    Location:
    East Anglia
    Gender:
    Female
    Gender Pronoun:
    She
    Sexual Orientation:
    Lesbian
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    I stayed up pretty much all night watching the election. I'm a bit dubious about the DUP. They seem so religious and out-of-touch when you compare them to the parties of the rest of the UK. At the same time, they're Brexiteers, so I don't see them being a barrier toward Brexit, which is good as I want the so-called "hard Brexit".
     
    #5 Reciprocal, Jun 9, 2017
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2017
  6. Haru

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Jun 5, 2017
    Messages:
    22
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    Ohio
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    Words fail me, so I'll just go with this: LMAO
     
  7. JackAttack

    JackAttack Guest

    Just stick to Australian politics Aussie, you do talk some shit :roflmao:
     
  8. KyleD

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Jul 4, 2013
    Messages:
    1,094
    Likes Received:
    25
    Location:
    Spain
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Family only
    Aussie is very knowledgeable in world politics. Just because he comes to a different conclusion doesn't make him wrong.

    I think what he meant is that Britain is not ready for that type of economic system.
     
  9. CurdledMilk

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Nov 3, 2016
    Messages:
    39
    Likes Received:
    1
    Location:
    Bath
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Bisexual
    Out Status:
    Some people
    I really hope the DUP getting some power here doesn't end in us losing our lgbt rights... If I was older I would have voted Labour for definate.
     
  10. WeDreamOfPeace

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Mar 27, 2017
    Messages:
    371
    Likes Received:
    8
    Location:
    Essex, UK
    Gender:
    Female (trans*)
    Gender Pronoun:
    She
    Sexual Orientation:
    Bisexual
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    Was really hoping Corbyn would get a majority. A Conservative/DUP government sounds like a nasty combination. Corbyn would have brought about an end to foreign military intervention, nuclear disarmament, cutting off arms deals etc. Disarmament/no more military intervention is the only way to achieve true world peace.

    Peace.
     
  11. CyclingFan

    Full Member

    Joined:
    May 1, 2014
    Messages:
    1,362
    Likes Received:
    30
    Location:
    Northern CA
    Cuba is remarkably successful by many measures, despite being poor. Years of crippling sanctions from the US most certainly did not help it's development. However, they have a higher literacy rate than the US, lower infant mortality (the US is fucking tragic at this) and similar life expectancy. They are able to achieve that life expectancy in a health care system that costs a fraction of the US, $9403/person in the US vs $813/person in Cuba.
     
  12. Aussie792

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Apr 5, 2013
    Messages:
    3,317
    Likes Received:
    62
    Location:
    Australia
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    Germany's economy is absolutely not socialist. Germany is a mixed-market, largely capitalist country with a culture of industrial cooperation rather than Britain's culture of fierce competition. If anyone's economic proposals were along the lines of German economics in terms of worker protections and state coordination with the corporate world, they are May's, not Corbyn's.

    Cuba is incredibly inefficient, with lack of access to a lot of consumer goods (including cars and diverse foodstuffs) at reasonable prices and extremely out-of-date industry. Extremely low access to internet and electronics is largely the result of state regulation and outright censorship. That Cuba's healthcare system functions is not a reason to adopt the sort of model where the state is responsible for virtually all economic activity because it ultimately leads to stagnation and a loss of choice.

    Importantly, what is wrong with Corbyn is that he is thoroughly anti-economic in his approach. Taxing only the ultra-rich never works because of capital flight and the capacity of the rich to find new approaches to tax avoidance, which means that all of Corbyn's promises for renationalisation will eventually bury even deeper into the pockets of ordinary people than they already would have. Massively raising corporate tax would drive out investors already shaky thanks to Brexit.

    There's also very little merit to much of the spending he does promise; university education is currently accessible to all thanks to an income-dependent repayment scheme. It currently gives class mobility, instead of using the money of plumbers to fund the education of doctors' and lawyers' children to study medicine and law, of which they will be the greatest financial beneficiaries. Renationalising the railways and energy would cost many hundreds of billions of pounds above market value thanks to the contractual arrangements they were privatised under (again, paid by taxpayers, rather offsetting any cost-reductions in the consumer use of those services) and without a guarantee of making those services sufficiently better to justify that enormous cost.
     
  13. KyleD

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Jul 4, 2013
    Messages:
    1,094
    Likes Received:
    25
    Location:
    Spain
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Family only
    Aussie, you are wrong. Germany is a Socialist country - that is a FACT. When you go to the doctor you hardly pay any money and University education below the Masters level is free. Employers are REQUIRED to provide insurance to everyone. There are no poor people in Germany because the government takes care of them. Germany is the quintessence of Socialism because of how involved the government is in the lives of its people.

    In many Caribbean countries we have first world infrastructure, advanced technology, the fanciest cars but the majority of the population live in extreme poverty. We are third world countries trying to live a first world lifestyle. So what if Cuba doesn´t have BMWs or the latest Samsung Galaxy phone? People there have access to quality healthcare and generally live a higher quality of life than anywhere else in the Caribbean.

    Many persons from other Caribbean islands go to Cuba to get an education or to get operations done that would cost millions of dollars anywhere else.
     
    #13 KyleD, Jun 9, 2017
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2017
  14. Aussie792

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Apr 5, 2013
    Messages:
    3,317
    Likes Received:
    62
    Location:
    Australia
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    I want to tie this into the subject of Britain's government formation but the context of the quotes I'm responding to is quite important for the discussion about Britain.

    The German economy is known in academia as a subset of capitalism known as Rhine Capitalism. Like Britain, universities and healthcare are publicly owned, though unlike in Britain education is fully subsidised. They are socialised. As in Britain, there's an income-based safety net.

    The majority of businesses are privately owned. Work is not allocated by government. Regulated though they are, all significant sources of economic activity are fundamentally private and the economy is driven by cooperation of private entities with German governments and each other.

    The offer of public services as a safety net has some benefits. The indignity of having no access to healthcare does not exist, while you can still buy insurance and doctors can practice privately. There are some detriments to the German model. The highly unequal, streamed public schooling system means that those who go through the gymnasiums (who are far more likely to be middle and upper class) to elite universities are effectively subsidised by all in their privilege. The close regulation of industries limit mobility and remain a structural risk that widespread stagnation of the economy will occur if the benefits given by the eurozone don't continue forever.

    This compromise between liberal capitalism and social democracy has brought Germany prosperity, a lesser version of it has in Britain. Both countries are some of the greatest successes of modern capitalism of both a social democratic and liberal democratic nature.

    Corbyn stands outside the scope of that tradition of hewing to institutional and economic stability that has existed since Major tried to curb the excesses of Thatcherism.

    But we're not really talking about the Caribbean in the British context. Extraordinary levels of poverty not seen in Britain for around a century are the norm in some Caribbean nations. Unbridled, corrupt capitalism is not something I support. It is not what Theresa May proposes. It hasn't been the norm in Britain in living memory, not in a true sense. The three-day week and widespread economic stagnation in the name of socialist democracy is absolutely something older Britons remember with horror.

    You're also being a little facetious about BMWs and Samsung Galaxies. It's not that wealthy Cubans can't drive luxury cars. It's that virtually everyone who drives a car drives a petrol-guzzling wreck which should have been dumped decades ago, while only the extremely wealthy (invariably a small subset of well-connected people) can afford what are very ordinary cars in the West for unbelievably inflated prices even compared to their market value in the West. The sort of technologies and efficient practices that improve the quality of public service, economic opportunity for individuals and ultimately national life are unavailable thanks to state-mandated lack of access to outside, private knowledge.

    There is no benefit in having public ownership of an obsolescent agriculture industry when you could subsidise only the poorest, produce more and make that agriculture less costly.

    Corbyn's plans for the economy effectively involve buying back private industries on principle, not because it would lead to better consumer experiences. He would subsidise a relatively privileged group of students rather than putting the same amount of money into removing the more important previous inequities which genuinely shut the poor out of good universities. That's because in his philosophy money belongs in the state's hands rather than in private hands and any redistribution is welcome regardless of its economic reality. He also has a shocking tolerance of antisemitism, violent activism and a belief that liberal democracies should unilaterally disarm against hostile nuclear states and that Britain shouldn't support the mutual security of Western democracies.
     
    #14 Aussie792, Jun 9, 2017
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2017
  15. KyleD

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Jul 4, 2013
    Messages:
    1,094
    Likes Received:
    25
    Location:
    Spain
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Family only
    I'll concede to you about Germany however Cuba is still by far the most successful Caribbean country. 99% of the beaches in my country are foreign owned because of Capitalism so the general population can't just go to a beach because it is closed off from them and they don't benefit from all the investment in infrastructure etc. Most of the Caribbean has been bought out by foreign companies because of corrupt politicians. Also, the most educated don't remain the Caribbean - the go to the US, UK or Canafa and never return.

    By abolishing privatisation Cuba was able to take back its economy and provide a better quality of life for their people. While the public transportation leaves much to be desired the have invested their resources in what matters which is the people. They are very advanced in terms of medicine and provide world class healthcare. You better not get sick in any other Caribbean country because if you don't have enough money to pay you will die.
     
    #15 KyleD, Jun 10, 2017
    Last edited: Jun 10, 2017