The time for political reform in the UK is NOW!!!

Why you shouldn't trust Facebook.

Mandelson's EU pension is 30 odd k a year. I suspect the 673k figure is an estimate of the pension fund that would required, not his annual pension.

I live in Scotland. People have talked about Brexit, obviously, over the last two years. But this is the first week I’ve heard non political people talking about it, water cooler moments if you will, ordinary folk talking about it during their tea breaks and such like.

The mood ? Difficult to call. Many people openly admire Mrs May because of her fierce determination to get the deal through. She’s seen as a decent person. But most think the deal itself is a load of cobblers. Some who voted to leave (older people, Conservative with a small c) are saying they might re-visit that and switch to remain, there’s a sense among them that UK would be better remaining for all the trouble that trying to leave is causing.

My gut feeling is that, if there were another referendum, Scotland would overwhelmingly vote for remain now, higher % than 2016.

But there’s also a mood, even within those conservative people, and even with Sturgeon having her own domestic problems, that Westminster no longer provides the kind of government that we need. And that being independent and doing our own thing within the EU would be more advantageous than us remaining in the U.K. and being outside the EU.

There’s also a genuinely dislike of the DUP and the £ for votes thing that the Tories have got going with them, to prop May’s government up, with a deep concern that N Ireland will get a better deal out of this than Scotland or Wales.

But by the same token, I can’t see the SNP being able to capitalise on this ... does that make sense ? They’ve been the government in Scotland for ages, people are genuinely pissed off by their failures in government. Folk are waiting an eternity for a GP appointment, casualty units are overrun Friday and Saturday nights, council services are being cut back everywhere and the trains are plain bloody unreliable. Labour and Corbyn are pretty much regarded as unelectable and the vast majority of people just see Scottish Labour as being a branch office and unable to make a decision of their own on any subject whatever. The Scottish Conservatives are rudderless, with their leader having disappeared altogether due to a new baby.

There is a mood for change, combined with a sense that Westminster is just a lost cause but there’s no one and no party capitalising on that mood. A lot of folk, like contributors here, are just plain fed up with the whole thing.

It’s not a mood I’ve ever seen before, that, it’s not despair as such, it’s just mega disenchantment with the lot of them.

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy

Can I have a blue pill please, just for a week or two even.....Cypher had it right mate, ignorance is bliss!

Don't worry, I'll be back spouting my usual bollocks and bull# sooner rather than later.....just not today.

This may come as a surprise....but I'm going to the pub now, meeting a Jock mate who is a rabid Brexiteer. I've warned him, NO POLITICS!
So we'll just talk about Celtic and argue about Andy Murray being a tosser and various other irrelevances, general good craic and banter over a gallon and a half or so of beer!

And can I add ... and this may be common south of the border, others can say ... a lot of folk are saying that, if a snap general election were called tmorro, they simply wouldn’t have a clue who to vote for. Or whether they’d bother to vote. Or, for some, whether voting even matters anymore. That’s how pissed off folk are.

a reply to: Freeborn
Haha enjoy mate!
I had a meal at the pub earlier, one of the old boy regulars was ranting about stringing all politicians by the neck and starting again lol. He totally meant it as well, I asked him if he was joking...then I said 'I bet you were a #ing psycho in your prime' and he replied 'You wouldn't have liked me' ...kinda chilled me when I looked in his eyes, I saw a killer lol

originally posted by: TheShippingForecast
And can I add ... and this may be common south of the border, others can say ... a lot of folk are saying that, if a snap general election were called tmorro, they simply wouldn’t have a clue who to vote for. Or whether they’d bother to vote. Or, for some, whether voting even matters anymore. That’s how pissed off folk are.

We need proportional representation in our voting system like the Welsh assembly and the Scottish parliament.
Then our votes might actually make a difference.

a reply to: djz3ro

Personally I’d favour a meritocracy or a demarchy over a democracy.

randomly selected decision makers who have been selected by sortition (lot) from a broadly inclusive pool of eligible citizens. These groups, sometimes termed "policy juries", "citizens' juries", or "consensus conferences", deliberately make decisions about public policies in much the same way that juries decide criminal cases. Demarchy, in theory, could overcome some of the functional problems of conventional representative democracy, which is widely subject to manipulation by special interests and a division between professional policymakers (politicians and lobbyists) vs. a largely passive, uninvolved and often uninformed electorate. According to Australian philosopher John Burnheim, random selection of policymakers would make it easier for everyday citizens to meaningfully participate, and harder for special interests to corrupt the process. More generally, random selection of decision makers from a larger group is known as sortition (from the Latin base for lottery). The Athenian democracy made much use of sortition, with nearly all government offices filled by lottery (of full citizens) rather than by election. Candidates were almost always male, Greek, educated citizens holding a minimum of wealth and status.

originally posted by: CornishCeltGuy

originally posted by: TheShippingForecast
And can I add ... and this may be common south of the border, others can say ... a lot of folk are saying that, if a snap general election were called tmorro, they simply wouldn’t have a clue who to vote for. Or whether they’d bother to vote. Or, for some, whether voting even matters anymore. That’s how pissed off folk are.

We need proportional representation in our voting system like the Welsh assembly and the Scottish parliament.
Then our votes might actually make a difference.

Too right mate, that's thinking I can get behind.

a reply to: surfer_soul

I actually like the sound of that. Us little people should have more say since there are way more of us than the rich who "represent" us now

a reply to: djz3ro

With no deal you get :

No confusion between withdrawal and future arrangements , no chance for Eu to put in a punishing trade-off between these . Withdraw . Then make future arrangements . Make _ them work on _ our timescale .

No government obligations - policy/ sovereignty is returned directly and completely to Uk parliament

The EU is unlikely to restrict businesses via difficult obligations or make major internationally operating corporations lives hard - plus widespread compliance is already in force

No judicial obligations to the EU , no security obligations ,

No comebacks / a straight split / automatic deference of Eu to expected diplomatic practise

The Eu are currently trying to limit British government power using British Business access to the common market as a tool , they're trying to hold the uk governemtn to ransom for favourable terms to them, by threatening to limit british economic interests . Big businesses or cross Eu companies can hold their own and are unlikely to become suddenly disabled
from trading in the Uk by the Eu just because the Eu hasn;t got what it wanted from the Uk govt. No deal puts the onus on the Eu to carry out it's threats at it's own peril . They can only carry them out after the 29th March , by which time it's too late for them to start causing major problems to major players , and the Uk govt comes away clean

Remainers , serious ones , have seen the fact that May can sit it out for a no deal Brexit , and it is the most obvious best option for the Uk . Remainers will try very hard to veil no deal with apocalyptic doom clouds , but by the time it happens blue skied sunny days will return to the Uk .

Which would you rather have - your government's hands tied with the burdensome obligations of prior agreements with basic protection racketeers -
or , not having your governments hands tied in such a manner ?

Any businessman will tell you : no deal beats a bad deal , but it's better than that , no deal is an entirely preferable arrangement . There might be few hiccups but what the hell , are we made of fluff ?

a reply to: OtherSideOfTheCoin

They simply don't want an incompetent terrorist loving commie to have a shot at 10 Downing Street. We should thank them for that at least, even if we do have to put up with the putrid mess of Theresa May.

a reply to: DoctorBluechip

You make some good points but what about the companies that are set to leave the UK if we crash out with no deal? Then there's the immediate cessation of all EU subsidies, the chaos of passport checks at all points of entry to the UK (a 30% rise in workload that HMRC don't have the money nor time to train staff for) call it project fear (wrongly) all you want (Project Fear is and has always been a Tory ploy that originated in 2014 during the Scottish Referendum, Leavers need to find another name for the negativity (or facts) that the Remain side are punting out) but there is a difference between fear and fact and a lot of the stuff labelled fear mongering is actually pretty factual.

The problem with Brexit is the fact that it treats the UK as if all 4 counties of the UK are equal and get the same things from the EU and this has been the problem from the start. As well as all 4 countries getting different things out of the EU, different counties withing those countries get different things from the EU (these differences aren't as vast between counties as they are between the countries), a fact none of those in charge of Brexit seem to be aware of.

People who don't live in your area might not understand why you voted the way you do. We are all different. I've never seen this mentioned anywhere before but I'd be willing to bet a pound to a penny if some of you good people South of the border lived in my area of Scotland there's a good chance you'd have voted Remain. I daresay if I lived down by Cornish I may have voted Leave. The fact is, this division has been caused, primarily by the in-fighting within the Tory Party that led to the Referendum in the first place. Farage appealing to racist sentiment (whether intended or not anyone who says racist sentiment had no part in the decision to Brexit is in some serious denial) and the fact that English votes alone outnumber (by a large margin) those of N.Ireland, Scotland and Wales combined.

ETA I keep hearing how Britain has her hands tied by the EU. The UK was a leader and rule maker of the EU. We haven't exactly been a wallflower nation who sits and does as they are told, otherwise we'd have been using the Euro. Some of the very laws Leavers are opposed to have been brought to the EU by the UK. I'm really not sure why people think this way. Just like the comments about the unelected EU officials. The problem is, we have a say in tbe EU MP's in the European Elections, which are pitifully low in turnout compared to other elections in Britain but they are there.

I don't understand how so many people don't know about them...

originally posted by: DoctorBluechip
a reply to: djz3ro

Remainers will try very hard to veil no deal with apocalyptic doom clouds , but by the time it happens blue skied sunny days will return to the Uk .

What about the Leave MP's who are rallying against No Deal?

I don't believe anything the politicians who want no deal say, the very ones who want No Deal because of the financial gain they will receive, due to investments they've made and having their palms greased by businesses who will thrive under no deal. I'm too poor for no deal, I'll be forced on Universal Credit which the European Court of human rights is against, a protection I currently enjoy, not for long...

originally posted by: djz3ro
I'd be willing to bet a pound to a penny if some of you good people South of the border lived in my area of Scotland there's a good chance you'd have voted Remain. I daresay if I lived down by Cornish I may have voted Leave.

Good point, we are very much a reflection of our local society and community.
It goes to practical levels as well. When they are crying on the news about a falling £ it is a celebration here. We get way more high spending foreign tourists driving around here with a weak £. There are winners and losers.
This island, while smaller than states in the US, has regional differences like different countries within countries.

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy

Precisely mate. It's a clusterf**k of epic proportions and it's made worse by the fact that the divide in this country over it all is, largely made worse by not understanding the reasons people voted the way they did..

a reply to: djz3ro
You gotta admit though, this is by far the most divisive issue in UK politics yet we are not talking about civil war like I see in US threads.
I can see some fighting at protests or whatever but generally we are all being pretty chilled on both sides.

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy

It's the second divisive referendum we've had here in Scotland recently but the last one was more divisive in Scotland than this one, most of Scotland is on the same page with this one....

a reply to: djz3ro
Okay so you have not much division in Scotland.
We have division in England/Wales, and that also divides us with you.
I can honestly see Scotland going 'independent' under the rule of the EU soon, and I think it would be the worst mistake you could make as a people.
Run with a WTO free UK for a while then decide if it is a good choice or not.

a reply to: djz3ro

They have no confidence in the government. But that word only applies to the party or parties in actual power. The government is not the opposition, they are separate entities, for all that they are a parliament together.

The reality of the situation is actually far more complicated. If you took away all the branding, and just gave people a list of policies from the Conservatives and the Labour Party, but did not tell anyone which policies were from which party, the majority of people in this country would support the Labour policies, and policy is the most fundamentally important thing here. Labour policies are structured to actually deal with, not defer dealing with, the biggest problems that the regular people of our country face, including a lack of appropriate policing, failures to ensure correct housing levels, a root and branch change to the way that every facet of governance operates, with regard to the citizen, all in order to make the government work for us, not use us, and murder us through starvation and neglect, as has been the case for the entire time the Tories have been in power.

In short, the Labour policies that exist currently, are pro humanity, anti corporate, and the sort of things that people would vote for, if they would only stop feeding themselves on right wing nonsense in our media, painting the very fiery and competent Corbyn, as either some monster, or a hapless goon. The people like Labour policy, a great deal more than they like Tory policy, by massive margins. What needs to happen is simply for people to vote on policy, not on which supporters club they happen to be in.

Question;

What do people actually mean by political reform???