Brexit.

[Kara Spengler]

Well I am always sceptical about studies, it always boils down for me to who paid for it in the end. Either way, backed up by studies or not, this is how the poor working class does perceive it mostly, and a major reason for them to drift to the right/more nationalist approaches.

Actually, who pays for it determines your methodology and how results are reported. If two orgs with different leanings both have a strict and unbiased methodology they will come up with the same results within the margin of error. You can also influence your results after the study by how you talk about them.

For example if your random sample biases certain populations you have to ask why. I was once looking at one study where all the interesting data was in poorer communities. The survey was online only. Spot the flaw. To their credit they corrected that when it was pointed out to them but I went over the survey with someone who had done a similar study a few years before and we lost count of how many things were in it that would bias the data.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

That means that, in a lot of cases, there's no reason for many towns and cities to be anything like as large as they used to be, and it's not the sort of problem that's susceptible to simple fixes, either from the right or the left.

People have to live somewhere. If there aren't enough jobs, does that mean we need fewer people, or does it mean we need people to be able to live without jobs?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

People have to live somewhere. If there aren't enough jobs, does that mean we need fewer people, or does it mean we need people to be able to live without jobs?

And perhaps we might also consider ways to assist some people in relocating to areas where there are jobs?

Forty or fifty years ago people were encouraged to move from areas of high unemployment to particular towns and cities because there were labour shortages in those areas. Now the world has changed, the factories and steelworks have closed, and the children and grandchildren of the workers who moved there are now themselves having difficulty finding work locally.

There's no single simple solution. Some people can't readily relocate, after all, so their needs have to be met somehow, and what works in one area probably won't work in another one. However, the fact remains that towns and cities grow and shrink for economic and historical reasons, and it's not obviously desirable to try artificially to keep any one place at a particular size.

 

[Kara Spengler]

That means that, in a lot of cases, there's no reason for many towns and cities to be anything like as large as they used to be, and it's not the sort of problem that's susceptible to simple fixes, either from the right or the left.

Actually, it might solve itself over time. A lot of the actual space in cities is roads and parking lots. Paradoxically, the wider roads are the more cars are needed so we widen roads to make the load less which brings more cars which .... you get the idea. Anyway, in the future there will be much less private cars for multiple reasons. Not the least of which is less of a need for them (if you can telecommute and get most of what you need delivered why have a car anyway).

Hopefully cities can be encouraged to recycle this unused space back into the communities it was taken from. We will probably wind up with more communities but each will be physically smaller with less of a need to regularly go to many others.

I can hear the car people screaming now. I have never driven. I did not live in an urban area until my 30s but even before then I just did not miss driving, believe it or not it is possible to get around. Move to an urban area and there is precisely 0 reason for everyone to have a car. If I need to get somewhere and public transit is not a good option I hail a cab or carpool with someone.

 

[detrius]

What is the point of a 5 day debate? Either they accept it or they decide they like diving off cliffs, it is WELL past the point where they can do anything else. Pretty soon even the option of a 2nd vote will be legally off the table no matter how much hurrying they do. Assuming a majority realizes a cliff-edge brexit is not even an option at this point they have to hope they can withdraw article 50 and do so if May's deal will not get enough votes.

Have you ever seen what a debate in the British House of Commons is like?

It's a total shit show. A clown circus staffed by frat boys who love to talk out of their pompous asses.

Here are some examples:

 

[Tigger]

It's an embarrassment watching our parliament in action. I've always felt that a lot of the disillusionment of people with politics in this country can be put down to the behaviour of our MPs in the house.

Now MPs will often say its that people dont understand their traditions that they've had since 1760 or some such date. But I say it's about time they got to within a hundred years of the people they are supposed to be governing. Because to Mr or Ms Average they sound like a cross between a clown and a braying donkey.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

It's also a shame, though possibly understandable, that TV shows only the most dramatic/silly moments in the Commons and completely ignores the really useful stuff like the various parliamentary committees (both select committees and committees on bills), which is where most of the work gets done.

Also, I think that "a cross between a clown and a braying donkey" doesn't, in fact, characterise all that happens on the floor of the House too well -- I follow a couple of MPs on https://www.theyworkforyou.com and when I look at the transcripts of the debates in which they participate, people seem often to be making very good and serious points.

The bear-garden of PMQs isn't representative of most of the work of either the Commons or the Lords.

 

[danielravennest]

People have to live somewhere. If there aren't enough jobs, does that mean we need fewer people, or does it mean we need people to be able to live without jobs?

West Virginia is losing population with a 5.2% unemployment rate, while Atlanta is adding 75,000 people a year with a 3.1% unemployment rate. Neither is a particularly high unemployment rate, so the jobs are there. The WVians just seem not to be willing to move when the mines shut down.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

West Virginia is losing population with a 5.2% unemployment rate, while Atlanta is adding 75,000 people a year with a 3.1% unemployment rate. Neither is a particularly high unemployment rate, so the jobs are there. The WVians just seem not to be willing to move when the mines shut down.

To be fair, not everyone can readily relocate, be it because of financial constraints or family responsibilities. Someone who owns a modest family house in a town in the north of England with a high unemployment rate can't simply sell up and move to London to work, since the proceeds of selling the house probably won't be sufficient to buy even a one-room bedsit in London. I imagine there are similar problems in the USA.

Furthermore, people don't exist simply as free-standing units of labour that can be effortlessly relocated from one part of the country to another. We exist as parts of social networks of friends and family, as part of a local community, and relocation comes at a cost -- sometimes high -- to those networks.

 

[detrius]

It's also a shame, though possibly understandable, that TV shows only the most dramatic/silly moments in the Commons and completely ignores the really useful stuff like the various parliamentary committees (both select committees and committees on bills), which is where most of the work gets done.

Also, I think that "a cross between a clown and a braying donkey" doesn't, in fact, characterise all that happens on the floor of the House too well -- I follow a couple of MPs on https://www.theyworkforyou.com and when I look at the transcripts of the debates in which they participate, people seem often to be making very good and serious points.

The bear-garden of PMQs isn't representative of most of the work of either the Commons or the Lords.

Yeah, but that's the point: those five days of debate are mostly for grown-up men barking insults at each other.

The actual policy making gets done in the breaks between the shouting matches. That's why they need five days for it.

 

[Sid]

Does the deal has to pass the House of Lords as well?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Yeah, but that's the point: those five days of debate are mostly for grown-up men barking insults at each other.

The actual policy making gets done in the breaks between the shouting matches. That's why they need five days for it.

They will apparently be taking, and voting on, amendments to the motion in those five days, so there is quite a lot of practical point to the debates.

Furthermore, I'm not at all sure that "mostly [...] grown up men barking insults at each other" is an accurate characterisation of what the debates are actually like. Take a look, for example, at the transcript of part of the debate over the European Union (Withdrawal) bill, as then it was, back in September of last year.

That reads to me like quite a serious debate, once John Bercow got them settled down.

Does the deal has to pass the House of Lords as well?

No. This isn't a law, which would have to pass both houses. The government promised, as part of the price for getting the A50 legislation through Parliament, that the Commons would be given the opportunity for a "meaningful vote" on any final deal. This is it.

ETA: Brexit: how the meaningful vote will work

 

[Kara Spengler]

It's also a shame, though possibly understandable, that TV shows only the most dramatic/silly moments in the Commons and completely ignores the really useful stuff like the various parliamentary committees (both select committees and committees on bills), which is where most of the work gets done.

Also, I think that "a cross between a clown and a braying donkey" doesn't, in fact, characterise all that happens on the floor of the House too well -- I follow a couple of MPs on https://www.theyworkforyou.com and when I look at the transcripts of the debates in which they participate, people seem often to be making very good and serious points.

The bear-garden of PMQs isn't representative of most of the work of either the Commons or the Lords.

Take a look at https://www.c-span.org/ (or look for their vids on youtube) to see the exact opposite. Not counting when they use filler like book tv they cover committees and such here (unfortunately I would love if every session had to be televised but I suspect that view is not common). The result is most people do not watch their broadcasts.

Meanwhile I have programmed my tivo to record some sessions I wanted to watch but would otherwise miss. Yeah, I really do not get people who hate politics.

 

[Free]

Just sharing.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Yes, "the poor working class" do frequently perceive it differently, and this is hardly surprising since successive governments and the media have been all too happy to encourage people to blame immigrants, rather than the government, for the consequences of failing economic policies.

The thing is that perception can be quite misleading and strong. It leads to tensions, and might also lead to pressure in some kind of areas, like e.g. cheap housing if not enough starter flats/homes are being build during a certain time frame. In the end many get the feeling that "those foreigners are stealing our work/flats", and get mad about it.

And that's the trouble with it. This is why many Brits dream about "taking control back" of their country; what they don't understand for sure is that today economies are so dependant on other economies as well, that this old approach is no longer being feasible in the long term.

In the long term the most important question is if there will be enough work for everybody; and this is something where economists have very different opinions about it, because automization is still continuing, productivity still increasing and of course this means fewer jobs. And if the result would be that work for everybody is not possible, the next question to society would be how to deal with it.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

This is why many Brits dream about "taking control back" of their country; what they don't understand for sure is that today economies are so dependant on other economies as well, that this old approach is no longer being feasible in the long term.

I don't think it's quite that. Rather, I think it's a combination of several factors.

First, whenever successive British governments have introduced legislation to give effect to EU directives, they've tended to include several additional, and contentious, provisions of their own, concerning topics related to the EU directive but not part of it, and then blame the EU if those provisions are unpopular.
Second, Conservatives have often resented having to pass the social legislation the EU requires -- the Working Time Directive, for example -- and would rather "take back control" in that sense; they (rightly) feel constrained by EU membership. Ironically, I see this as one of the main advantages of EU membership -- it prevents British governments from doing anything too stupid. When someone like Jacob Rees-Mogg complains that membership of the EU won't allow his policies to be implemented, I regard that as a feature, not a bug, though obviously he and his supporters wouldn't agree.

Third, and this is the most relevant to economically deprived areas, I think in such areas votes against remaining in the EU were votes against the status quo rather than against the EU in particular. While people quite rightly pointed out how much better off we are in the EU than we would be outside, a lot of people didn't think they were getting much benefit from this, however well others might be doing, and simply voted for things to change, without really thinking through how they might change for the worse. "Take back control" in this context means "take back control from the 'market forces' that governments since the 1980s have insisted shape our lives" rather than "take back control from the EU."

 

[Daniel Voyager]

Brexit debate: Clash over whether BBC or ITV will host debate

Clash over who screens Brexit TV debate

Mr Corbyn claimed he preferred ITV's bid out of "respect" for viewers who wanted to watch the I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! final on ITV the same evening - 9 December.
"I want to watch it myself," he said

It's going to be a interesting December thats for sure whatever way the vote goes.


Bank of England: disorderly Brexit would result in the worst economic slump since World War II
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/11/28/bank-england-disorderly-brexit-would-result-worst-economic-slump/

Nothing like scaring the public more

 

[Tigger]

The debate is pointless. Two pro brexit politicians, neither of whom want to actually say anything true about brexit if they can avoid it or use a platitude in its place, arguing with each other at time when there is no (planned) election or referendum on the horizon.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

It's not yet clear the debate will actually take place.

It's obviously good for leaders to be seen as willing to debate with each other, and it's difficult to decline the opportunity without being seen as chickening out, but the problem with debates is that you risk losing them, and neither May nor Corbyn wants to risk that.

Remember back in 2015, David Cameron was seemingly very enthusiastic to debate with Ed Miliband, the then leader of the Labour Party, but kept on discovering unforeseen problems about the format, and they ended up not debating at all, being interviewed separately by Jeremy Paxman, instead. Similar things have happened in previous years.

Already we're seeing this, I suspect -- Theresa May has apparently accepted the BBC's offer to stage the debate, while Jeremy Corbyn would prefer for ITV to show it -- Clash over who screens Brexit TV debate -- and I am sure this is only the first of a series of stand-offs about the format and participants.

I'll believe in the debate when it actually happens, not before. A bit like Brexit itself, really.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

A Parliamentary Committee at work -- rather different from PMQs, and possibly more effective: