Friday: Hili dialogue

46 thoughts on “Friday: Hili dialogue”

1. Re the UK election result:

   It’s notable that the Labout vote only increased slightly (32.1 => 33.7%) from their heavy defeat last time.

   But, over a third of Tory voters instead voted for “Reform” (best understood as Tory voters but wanting a hard-line stance on immigration; they’re not totally opposed to all immigration but want it greatly reduced and controlled). Those voters are still there, in that Tories plus Reform added up to 38%, more than Labour, but was split.

   British politics since Brexit has revolved around immigration. Large swathes voted for Brexit over “sovereignty”, primarily because they wanted such issues controlled by the UK Parliament, not by the EU or the courts.

   Boris Johnson then won on a platform of “get Brexit done” and “take back control”, essentially promising this to the Brexit/Reform-minded voters, who thus voted Tory.

   But what happened was the opposite. Immigration massively increased. Partly this is legal immigration, the government issuing hundreds of thousands of visas, because business asks for cheap labour to “boost the economy” (even though, despite it boosting GDP, it doesn’t boost GDP per capita). The Tory government seems to have not understood that most Brexit/Reform voters are strongly opposed to this.

   As for illegal immigration (small boats crossing the channel) this increased hugely partly because of the loss of cooperation from France, post Brexit, but also because the courts (British and European) have effectively ruled that no-one can be deported to any developing-world countries, owing to human-rights legislation. If someone’s home country doesn’t have a European level of prosperity and social security, then they have a valid claim to “asylum”.

   The Tory government just wrung their hands about this, but not actually doing anything, and thus have presided over levels of immigration amounting to 1.8% of the population every year.

   Thus, over a third of their voters have abandoned the Tories, voting instead for the upstart Reform, who ran on a platform of repealing any legislation that stops them massively reducing and controlling immigration (including pulling out of the European Court of Human Rights if necessary; note, this is distinct from the EU).

   With the Tory/Reform vote split, and in a first-past-the-post Parliamentary system, Labour have won a landslide despite a barely increased fraction of the vote.

   1. This is a fascinating analysis, thanks.

   2. As usual, Coel shows himself to be one of the most intelligent pundits in the blogosphere.

      If some third-world dictator introduced a first-past-the-post system, claiming it to be democratic, no-one would take them seriously.

      Run-off elections aren’t much better.

      Best is proportional representation (get x per cent of the votes, get x per cent of the seats). For those who still believe in the myth that it makes any sense for a candidate to “represent a district”, use the German system: half elected by first-past-the-post (just a simple majority, no absolute majority needed) and the rest come from lists. There are two votes: one for the direct candidate and one for the party. BUT the second vote determines the number of seats via proportional representation, INCLUDING THE DIRECT CANDIDATES. It really is the best of both worlds. Personally, I would be fine with just proportional representation, but the German system addresses the wants of those who want a candidate to represent a district without sacrificing the value of proportional representation.

   3. For clarity, Labour had fewer votes in this election than in either of the previous two. Which they lost.

      The British people didn’t switch to Labour, they just didn’t vote. A lot of people don’t like or trust Reform and none of the other parties are materially different – they’re all high spend, high immigration, net zero economy destroyers.

   4. I would respectfully suggest that the real reasons why the British electorate gave the Tories such a kicking at this election were not so much the handling of migration, legal or otherwise, but the fact

      – that most families feel (and are!) poorer after 14 years of Tory rule;
      – that the NHS is on its knees;
      – and that the Tories under Johnson, Truss and Sunak had abandoned any pretence at governing for the benefit of the whole country, and had utterly lost the trust of the electorate.

      Whilst several million people who voted Tory in 2019 did indeed switch to the far-right Reform party, many millions more either returned to Labour or switched to the centre-left Liberal Democrats, who now have 71 MPs, an astonishing increase from 8 in the 2019 election. Those extra 63 seats were taken from Tory incumbents.

      1. Except that only 9,712,011 voted Labour this time whereas 10,269,051 did last time.

         And 3,501,040 voted LibDem this time versus 3,696,419 last time.

         The story here really is the split in the Tory/Reform vote plus the effects of FPTP.

         By the way, which Reform policies make you label them as “far right”?

         1. “By the way, which Reform policies make you label them as “far right”?”

            The open racism of many of their candidates, for starters.

            Then there’s the fawning adulation of Tr*mp by their leader. Farage is mini-Trump.

         2. You said: “Except that only 9,712,011 voted Labour this time whereas 10,269,051 did last time.”

            But David didn’t claim that Labour’s vote had shot up. He explained why the Tories got a kicking, and he’s largely correct. The NYT ran an article a few days ago (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/03/world/europe/uk-election-better-worse.html) that demonstrates, through charts of official statistics, just how much the Tories have f***ed the UK. Those figures show you all you need to know about why voters moved away from the Tories.

            You also said: “The story here really is the split in the Tory/Reform vote plus the effects of FPTP.” No, it’s not. You underestimate the general level of anger and resentment felt toward the Tories. People have had enough. If reform hadn’t taken that number of Tory votes, those voters would have gone elsewhere, or not voted. If you look at the earlier polls – before Farage entered the ring – far fewer people said they would vote for reform, but the Tories were placing just as badly against labour.

            The argument against FPTP seems reasonable at first glance but becomes much less so when viewed in the proper historical context. Also, the claim about it hurting the Tories is ironic to say the least.

            In 2011, as part of the Lib Dem coalition deal, Nick Clegg forced (a very reluctant) Cameron to hold a national referendum on changing our FPTP system. Clegg pushed for a vote on full PR, but knowing at the time that this could not possibly help the Tory party win elections, Cameron flat refused. The most he would agree to was a ballot on a sort of half-PR called Alternative Vote (AR). A referendum was held, and the public voted 68% to 32% to maintain our existing FPTP system. So, the Tories had the chance to vote and campaign for PR, but out of (anti-democratic?) self-interest, they refused to. The country then democratically opted to maintain our FPTP system.

            1. But David didn’t claim that Labour’s vote had shot up.

               Well yes he did (“many millions more either returned to Labour or switched to the centre-left Liberal Democrats”), when actually both the Labour and LibDem votes declined.

               But you’re entirely right about the unpopularity of the Tories, with many voters switching to other parties or just not voting.

         3. By the way, which Reform policies make you label them as “far right”?
            A party doesn’t need explicitly racist policies, it’s the DNA of the party that matters. Reform is full of reprobates like their official campaigner Andrew Parker, who was filmed this week saying this of asylum seekers:
            “You’ve got the army recruitment… near Dover… Get the young recruits there, yeah, with the guns on the f**king beach, target practice. F**king just shoot them.”

            And this is about Rishi Sunak:
            “That f**king p*ki we’ve got in. What good is he?”

            In typical Trump fashion, Farage claims it was a set-up. It was not.

   5. That’s most enlightening, Coel. Thanks.

   6. Interesting that Reform with a considerably larger vote percentage (millions) over the Liberal Democrats, LDP, Only managed five seats with the LDP achieving seventy one seats, proportional representation??

   7. I agree with many of your points, but we must examine the numbers surrounding the claims made by Reform and the Tories. For instance, the frequent claims they make about the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and its supposed stranglehold on UK lawmaking do not stand up to scrutiny. According to the Council of Europe stats for the ECHR in 2022:

      * Only 4 out of 1,163 judgments concerned the UK, with just two finding breaches.
      * The ECHR accepted 5 requests for interim measures from the UK while rejecting 12.
      * A mere 0.13% of applications pending at the end of the year involved the UK.

      These figures clearly demonstrate that the ECHR’s impact on UK law is minimal, making the political rhetoric surrounding it largely unfounded. Unscrupulous politicians are manipulating public perception by emphasising these issues out of proportion.

      Similarly, the narrative around illegal immigration, particularly the emphasis on small boat crossings, is often exaggerated. The reality is that these arrivals constitute less than 2% of the approximately 600,000 people legally admitted each year. This context is crucial for understanding the broader immigration landscape. I agree that immigration is way out of control, but you can’t fix anything unless you properly understand the situation.

      I’m happy to say that the Conservative Party’s predicament is largely self-inflicted. People are sick of the lies, grafting, and sense of entitlement. The party misled the public about the EU and the purported benefits of Brexit. As people now experience the fallout, including economic challenges and diminished living standards, there is a growing realisation that they were misinformed, leading to disillusionment and anger.

      Regarding your point about the electoral system, I agree that first-past-the-post (FPTP) has its limitations (I discuss this further down in the thread). However, every party understands the system and strategises accordingly. Both major parties focus their resources on marginal seats to optimise their chances of winning in FPTP. If the system were based on proportional representation (PR), campaign strategies would undoubtedly adapt to maximise results under that system instead. The Tories know this just as well as Labour.

      1. You’re right in the sense that it’s mostly British courts that make the rulings, but British law incorporates the European convention (Human Rights Act 1998) and British courts take their cue from the ECHR rulings.

         You’re also right that legal immigration is much higher than illegal immigration. The Tory government had pursued a policy of high legal immigration that is deeply unpopular with their supporters, hence their willingness to jump to Reform.

2. The FPTP system is grossly unfair and, however much I hate saying this, Reform deserves more MPs than the 4 that were elected. The Lib Dems (disclosure: I am a member) got 71 on much the same number of votes. The difference is that the LDs ruthlessly concentrated on the seats where they came second to the Conservatives in 2019 and pretty well ignoring the rest. They were helped, incidentally, by Labour releasing a list of non-target seats which was, correctly, taken as invitation for the LDs to look at them in detail. Was there a stitch up between the LDs and Labour? Not officially but there was certainly a nudge and a wink between the parties.

   In other words: the LDs played the FPTP system ruthlessly despite them wanting proportional representation !

   1. It’s worth reminding everyone that there was a referendum in the U.K. in 2011 on whether to replace the FPTP system with a form of proportional representation. It was a valiant attempt by the Liberal Democrats to make use of their position as partners in the 2011-15 coalition government. The electorate rejected the idea by 2 to 1. So, flawed as FPTP undeniably is, it was also the choice of the British people, when they were asked.

      1. Well said! I have just written about this in another comment before seeing yours.

3. I could support any of the candidates suggested by pundits except for Biden and Harris, who represent the Democratic party that has betrayed us.

   1. You don’t think the others have been part of that? Which one of them came out before the debate to say there were problems?

4. Very informative Coel’s post.
   A shame that Jeremy Corbyn was reelected for his constituency (Islington North); now he runs as Independent.

5. Is Joe Biden really the Democrats’ problem?

   No, it’s the Dems’ policies.

   And would his departure from the race really help their chances of beating Donald Trump?

   Not unless they credibly promise to change their policies.

   “. . . she has already been vetted–thoroughly” . . . .

   Has she? One might have thought that Joe Biden had been, as well, but now the MSM has discovered his senescence. As the opinions quoted above show, the Dems believe their key objective is to defeat Trump. The press has shown that it is completely on-board with that. They sheltered Biden to that end, and there is no reason to think that they haven’t been sheltering Harris. I’d mentioned that the right-wing media has been all over these two. Even if you just follow a site like “therighting.com,” which reports on what the right-wing press is saying, you’d have seen the worst of these two. It may not all be true, but, with regard to Biden, at least, it seems to have been pretty close to the mark.

   Is Donald Trump the only issue in ’24? It’s a convenient red-flag that allows them to avoid discussing other issues. If the Dems win, though, they will take it as an endorsement of their policies, rather than as just an anti-Trump vote.

   1. I think the problem you have is that the policies all take a back seat to the coup-plotting sociopath who is the Republican nominee. It’s not a red flag: the guy tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power. DeSantis could have been the nominee, or Ted Cruz in 2016, but they’re not, Trump is. I’m no fan of Dem policies but the Republican party has left me with no choice (again).

      1. Then again, maybe Trump wasn’t a coup plotter. It’s definitely in the Dems’ interest for you to think so. The January 6 Committee spent a lot of time trying to convince everyone he was, but suspiciously made no criminal referrals, and then destroyed a lot of the evidence they collected. The MSM media has told us all the allegations are true, but they’ve also told us Biden is fine. If it hadn’t been for January 6, would you consider voting for Trump?

         1. +1

         2. Huh? I mean there is a 10 minute phone call with Raffensberger, there are admitted conversations about fake elector schemes, there are known text messages from Trumps goons to congressmen, there is Rudy and Cracken Lady on the record, there are confirmed calls from Trump to the Republicans in Michigan, there is the whole Eastman garbage. This is pure cognitive dissonance-Trump doesn’t even deny it nor does he deny telling Pence to do his bidding on Jan6. What are you talking about?

            1. Please be civil to other commenters. This is your first comment and you clearly haven’t read the Roolz on the sidebar. Please do so.

               Thank you.

   2. Harris was vetted thoroughly by DEI. She is female and black. These were her qualifications. Lol.

   3. “Not unless they credibly promise to change their policies.”

      If they changed their policies enough to meet your approval they would be indistinguishable from Republicans. As it is, it would be a waste of their time to try appealing to committed right-wingers.

6. All around the west from the US to the EU there is only one issue that has propped up the right: immigration. If the left followed their roots (namely that mass immigration is indeed problematic; in fact the NYTimes had an interesting video report a year ago showing that no political party has become more extreme over the last 40 years than the Democrats in the US with respect to immigration). If the left only stayed where it was on this issue in 1985 the center-left would probably have nothing to fear from MAGA, it is not even clear there would be MAGA. However because of the ways in which the party has changed wrt to race, this would not really be possible, as simple as it seems. Progressive left politicians like Sherrod Brown and even Bernie Sanders understood this to an extent, but the swing over the last 15 years to the party being run by highly educated elites has made this impossible.

   1. +1

      Mass immigration also cheapens the value of citizenship. Is that a bug or a feature to progressives?

   2. I especially wonder about in a small place like the UK. How many more people can they fit in there anyway?

   3. Practically the only country in Europe not shifting to the right is Denmark. Probably no coincidence that the ruling social democrats now have a really strict policy on immigration. (Forget the Labour win in the UK. As others have pointed out, they won only because the conservative vote was split between the Tories and Reform, amplified by the ridiculous first-past-the-post system.) There are several explanations: they changed their minds, they recognized that the situation had changed, they don’t want the new policy but it is the price to pay to stay in power so that they can implement their traditional leftist agenda, they go where the votes are. I don’t know. I suspect mostly the second option, with a bit of the first and third.

      The fourth might seem cynical to some, but why not? Representative democracy is a means to an end. The whole point is to get the parliament to reflect the views of the populace. Instead of parties trying to convince the voters that they have the best ideas, parties would instead compete to figure out what the electorate really wants. Why not? I don’t think that this is actually the case anywhere, but think of representatives as public servants. We don’t want public servants implementing their own policies, we want them to do what they are supposed to do.

      Having said that, representative democracy is, again, a means to an end, and necessary because division of labour is necessary here. Most people don’t have the time to investigate all issues in detail, many laws are the result of compromises and negotiations. I want someone who generally agrees with me negotiating on my behalf, and that works better if they really want it themselves too.

7. “And remember—if he’s elected and resigns or dies in office, Kamala Harris becomes President.”

   So what? She’s not going to implement the Heritage Foundation’s 2025 project and subvert American Democracy and turn America into a theocracy. She’s not going to nominate radical religious nationalists from the Federalist Society to SCOTUS or other judicial benches. She’s not going to exact policies of revenge and retribution against her perceived enemies and the “deep state.” She’s not going to demand absolute loyalty above the Constitution. She’s not going to steal thousands of top-secret government documents. She’s not going to do the bidding of Putin, including allowing him to take Ukraine. She’s not going to be indicted 94 times, convicted of 34 felonies, or impeached (twice!). (Now with SCOTUS making POTUS above the law, perhaps that doesn’t matter anymore.) Anyway, I could go on, but I made my point. A fricking wet noodle would make a better POTUS than Trump.

   1. I’m a bit puzzled at how many people seem to be worried about a Kamala Harris presidency. Perhaps they feel that she has been ineffective as vice-president. But in terms of qualifications for the job, she must be at least as qualified as Obama was when he became president in 2008.

      1. I agree, as if American VPs of the past have been men of great popularity with a historical list of accomplishments (well, maybe Cheney was effective at lying/manipulating the US into a war in Iraq). And her poll numbers are tied to Biden’s, so you can’t expect them to be outlandishly higher. But you can’t overlook the reality of run-of-the-mill misogyny and bigotry. There are many who simply feel a woman (any woman) doesn’t have what it takes to be a POTUS- especially a black woman. 😱

      2. The first NYT op-ed person who mentioned how Kamala could easily go up against Trump in a debate has a good point. I’ll never forget her performance at the Kavanaugh hearings. She was cool, tough, and knew her stuff which is why I’ve been so surprised/disappointed in her as VP. Her demeanor has often been strangely silly and unfocused. I’ve wondered several times if she was stoned? All the giggling and rambling… She may be one of those who does better when she’s in charge. She can definitely be a bulldog and I never took her for a dummy, but she’s seemed lost as VP. As for which Democrat can beat Trump, I think the real question is how many Democrats have or will bolt the party because of the religion of “woke”. And a big part of that is the phony trans issue.

      3. No more DEI hires, period.
         Not for the presidency.

         Plus… she’s a drug warrior, a hypocrite and a hideous narcissist.

         D.A.
         NYC

   2. I think they are both better than Trump. But can either Harris or Biden defeat him? I don’t think so, wish they could.

8. I agree with the thrust of the comments here that Labour didn’t really win the election; the Tories lost it. I don’t really need to explain why; the Jonathan Pie video did that more accurately, eloquently, clearly and comprehensively than I could – satire, yes – exaggeration? Not much. The fact was that the Tories elected probably, the two worst Prime Ministers in British history.
   Boris Johnson and Liz Truss flushed the economy and trust in politics down the toilet. While Sunak did his best, to stabilise things, and tried to get his arm down the toilet to pull the economy back again it was far too little and too late, and he did almost nothing to restore trust. The election was, almost certainly, already lost for the Party even before he came to power. The Tories were corrupt, self-serving and sleazy. Their division over Europe, and Brexit ultimately tore them apart, and their infighting and division was embarrassing to watch. In fact, I find it astonishing that anyone could vote for them. The fact that they got as many as 121 seats after their abysmal performance in power is a national disgrace, and the only reason, I think they got that many seats is because the right-wing print media continually skewed the debate in support of their policies by frightening their readers about immigration and tax (Although I should confess that I can’t really comment because, as a matter of principle, I don’t read “news?”papers). As an example of newspaper bias the British Humanist Organisation tweeted today that the papers had falsely claimed that if elected Kier Starmer would be the first atheist Prime Minister (there were apparently seven previous ones).
   While the BBC, in line with their charter obligations, is obliged to remain impartial, I suspect the print media to a large extent was able to tilt the zeitgeist in the direction they wanted, forcing the BBC to manipulate their agenda in the direction Murdoch and friends desired.
   In the interests of transparency, I should say that I voted Labour, but I then I would have voted for Larry the cat if I thought it would have got the Tories out.
   So, where to from here? The catalogue of Tory failure has left the county in a dire state, and it will be the devil’s own job to transform it. It has to be said that, despite the fact that Starmer has all the charisma of a cold cup of coffee, he does seem to be a team player and a thoughtful and intelligent pragmatist, in contrast to the individualists, and blind simplistic idealists in the party his is replacing. Let’s hope he’s the guy we need.
   There’s more I could say about how – interestingly – the Tories’ Thatcherite policies, and their austerity programme failed to boost the economy in the way they thought, and failed the country, but my 600 words are nearly up, so summing all this up in two words it would be “good riddance”.

   1. Note to self – don’t write blog posts late at night when you’re overtired. Reading the British Humanist tweet again, what it actually said was that their were six previous non-religious prime ministers before Starmer. As an atheist I obviously wouldn’t see Starmer’s religious scepticism as a reason not to vote for him, but it seems reasonable to suppose that the newspapers’ false claims were a means of disparaging the, then, leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition. Newspaper editors would probably say that press freedom is essential in a democracy, and indeed they are right, but with freedom comes responsibility, and lying to readers in such a manner – is obviously a way of corrupting democracy.

9. On the question of Harriet Harman, she stood down as an MP, at this election, and is not part of the new Labour Government. Though according to the article she is touted as being a candidate for a seat in the Lords, she would have less influence on policy, as she would in the lower house.
   As I understand it, when Starmer was asked whether a woman was a woman, and a man was a man, he said yes.

   1. It’s worth remembering that Harriet Harman has always been annoyingly woke. So much so that, during the Blair/Brown years of government, she became known as Harriet Harperson.

      1. Thanks, didn’t know that.

10. I watched this evening’s interview with George Stephanopoulos and President Biden. Biden looked and sounded much better. Looking back to the debate, Biden might also have been dehydrated, besides being possibly jet lagged and under the weather. His temples looked quite sunken and he was very pale.

    I’m quite alarmed to read about Project 25 by the Heritage Foundation. It’s too late for Trump to feebly try to disavow them.

    1. … I meant Project 2025, of course.
       From MSNBC:
       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8uMKY_hhtY

11. I’ve seen comments blaming Reform or the electoral system for the Labour landslide, but that’s not the root cause. Voters were simply fed up with the Tories, and here’s why (these are official stats for the period 2010-2024):

    The Tory government criticized Labour for the ‘debt crisis’ and promised austerity to reduce the national debt. Yet, public services have been severely cut, with local government budgets dropping by 27%. Despite this, national debt has surged from 70% of GDP in 2010 to 98% in 2024.

    Our armed forces have shrunk by 25% since 2010. The tax/GDP ratio has risen to 36.2%, the highest since post-WW2. NHS waiting lists have skyrocketed from 2.2 million in 2010 to over 7.5 million in 2024, and timely cancer treatment has plummeted.

    Despite constant Tory claims about controlling immigration, net migration rose from under 300,000 in 2010 to 764,000 in 2022. Productivity growth is almost non-existent, partially due to the Brexit fallout, which saw over £2 trillion in capital leaving the UK and investment grind to a halt.

    Then you have the Laurel and Hardy of fiscal policy: Truss and Kwarteng. In September 2022, these reckless, bumbling ideologues introduced a budget so poorly conceived it was almost comical. Within days, the pound fell to historic lows against the dollar, the cost of public debt surged, and ratings agencies downgraded the UK’s credit status. Around 40% of mortgage products were pulled from the market, trashing the homeownership dreams of many thousands of families. The Bank of England had to intervene by buying £19 billion in bonds to prevent a full-blown financial crisis, as several large pension funds were on the brink of collapse.
    This budget caused a rapid increase in inflation, further squeezing families’ finances. The Bank of England then had to hike interest rates, leading to higher mortgage costs and thousands of home repossessions within six months. The debacle cost every UK adult between £1,000 and £1,200, with long-term repercussions.
    Truss and Kwarteng’s decision to bypass the Office of Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) compounded the catastrophe. The OBR normally scrutinises budget plans, estimating costs, benefits, and market reactions. They avoided checks and balances by sidestepping this process, springing their disastrous budget as a massive surprise. This reckless behaviour had massive repercussions for millions of people. They should have been locked up.

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