In a dark, dark, way:
Democracy is in crisis. What would do most to restore it?
Funding political parties so they are free of donor influence?
Of course state funding of politics would not free politics of donor influence. It would merely place the influence in the hands of those who define what is the allowable politics that gains state funding.
He never left the Sixth Form Common Room, did he? This is sub-student levels of ignorance.
Democracy is in crisis because the people look like they might finally start getting their way if the Trumpian revolution spreads.
Joking aside, bear in mind that these cunts – most of them far above this specific cunt’s pay grade, but they hold the same ‘beliefs’ – have been busily redefining ‘democracy’ as the institutions of states. So ‘protecting democracy’ is protecting the NHS, the Dept of Education, HMRC etc etc, the civil service generally, politicians particularly, etc etc
Presumably, he thinks the Ely Popular Front (splitters!) would be in line for £££. Realistically, I doubt even the Labour party would give him anything.
Like the EU does.
It works well* there, the bureaucrats get a load of centrist non boat rocking yes men as MEPs
I’m inclined to think that it might be best to ban political funding from all but individual UK citizens (is resident UK citizens going too far?).
So: nothing from collectives – nothing from trade unions, charities, companies, professional partnerships, trade bodies, trusts … Only from individuals.
No implicit subsidies from local authorities, central government, universities etc – no free use of property, no sinecures for aspiring politicians, and so on.
Would this be desirable? Could this be policed?
@ PiP
Would be desirable.
Could this be policed? – Only by self-appointed vigilantes because any body appointed by politicians to police it would be at extreme risk of only blocking funding to not-politically-correct parties. TTK would allow the political levy because it is paid by individual trade unionists
You are right, Interested. ‘Democracy’ has no meaning to the commies. Focus group testing says it is a positive word, strongly desirable. So the commies paste in on every play in their book. It is a certification of goodness.
‘Protecting democracy’ is “protecting that which is good” in commie speak. Hence, canceling elections can be ‘protecting democracy.’
“the political levy”: oh I’d ban that outright. All money must go to the political party directly not through intermediaries.
You’d also need a ban on, say, a foreigner gifting lots of money to a cousin in the UK who would then gift it to a political party. All such indirect high jinks would be banned.
There’s something significant about that fact that the world’s two most consequential political actors right now – Trump and Musk – have done it entirely with their own resources. There’s value in being unbeholden.
It’s often forgotten that democracy also means standing up and saying what you’ll do if you’re elected, and then once elected on that basis, going and doing it. You don’t continually have to get more agreement about tactics from people who have already demonstrated that they agree with your strategy, so long as you continue to do strategically what you said you would prior to the election.
Trump is doing exactly this.
Democracy is rule of or by the “demos”.
So what you do is *define* the “demos” to suit – the Westminster bubble defines the ruling “demos” as the Westminster bubble – nominally it is the two Houses of Parliament, but … – and the ruled “demos” is the whole of the UK. Washington defines the ruling “demos” as the President, Congress and the Supreme Court, the ruled “demos” variously as the USA, the “western world”, and the universe. Putin defines the ruling “demos” as himself and his team, the ruled “demos” as “Russia – but it should be the whole of Peter the Great’s empire and post-WW2 Comecon”
the lie that state «allowed to hold a gun to your head» and «force you to pay for its services» story, because it is completely false from a libertarian point of view in nearly every modern state.
Because whether *you* allow a State to «hold a gun to your head» is your personal choice.
Payment of taxes for state services is entirely voluntary in the UK and most other states: all you have to do is TAKE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY and live in another State.
If you don’t like the price that the UK State asks you to pay for its services, get out of the UK and buy services from a State that offers you a better bargain you are willing to take. Shop around! There is a market in State membership.
it is like with condo management: you don’t like yearly fees for the condo? Shop around and buy an apartment in another condo. If you *choose* to stay in that condo but you refuse to pay the yearly fees, you are STEALING THEIR PROPERTY.
Living in a first-world state and paying whichever level of taxes are agreed for its services is purely a VOLUNTARY BARGAIN OF MUTUAL ADVANTAGE, with NO COERCION whatsoever, because you can leave that State anytime you want, respecting any contractual exit clauses, just like in any voluntary bargain of mutual advantage, just like you can leave that condo.
“state funding of politics would not free politics of donor influence. It would merely place the influence in the hands of those who define what is the allowable politics that gains state funding.“
Allowable politics since Thatcher has been neoliberal and neocon. Anyone who opposes this (Corbyn, Sanders) have vicious attacks from the establishment.
Democracy is in crisis. What would do most to restore it?
Vote for the person with the policies that you want to see put in place. Note however this only works in the very rare situation of the person elected actually doing what he said he was going to do. Even then the people who don’t like those policies will screech about democracy being in crisis.
Example in Covid non-thatcherite governments decided that the minimal restrictions of a test-trace-isolate public health approach were compatible with *both* greater freedoms *and* much lower death rates, and indeed this was very successful.
Another interesting data point is India-Kerala, a state with 35m residents, with a rate of around 30 deaths per 100,000 residents:
https://dashboard.kerala.gov.in/covid/
https://dashboard.kerala.gov.in/covid/deaths.php
That is a state where typical wages are around £100-120 per month, so not exactly a rich place, but still non-thatcherite, unlike so many “neoliberal democracies” with death rates 5-10 times higher. They have a younger population profile, but that is no the major reason for the difference. have any evidence that China-mainland or China-Taiwan ever had a national lockdown that lasted months, or is that yet another bellowing imbecility?
https://www.bloombergquint.com/businessweek/a-guide-to-2021-covid-vaccines-stimulus-sanity
«China, which clamped down on Covid with compulsory mask wearing isolation of the sick, and effective contact tracing. Chinese are blithely eating in restaurants, sitting in theaters, attending school, and going back to work. On Jan. 18 the government reported GDP grew 2.3% in 2020, which makes China the only major economy to to avoid a contraction for the year. Exports helped: they rose 18% in December from a year earlier despite slow demand growth abroad because Chinese exporters grabbed market share from foreign rivals. This year, Bloomberg economics forecasts that China will take advantage of stronger economic growth abroad to realize GDP growth of 8.2%.»
Both in Russia and China there is a wide, open and public political debate ranging from the far to the far right.
* What Russia’s and China’s elites don’t tolerate is for that debate to give rise to alternative political organizations. In particular in China (and to some extent in Russia) the central principle is the leading role of the governing party; debate can be free and open and public, inside and outside the party, and it can criticize the party as long as it is done individually, and does not give rise to alternative political organizations, which are usually foreign-funded.
* The thing that both Russia and China’s elite was to absolutely avoid has a name: Solidarnosc (which was almost entirely funded by the USA and the Vatican), or more recently the “Maidan” coup plotters.
* Conversely in the “Washington Consensus” countries “free” speech is subject to “guardrails”, which limit “free” speech to full alignment with thatcherism/reaganism (“whig” neoliberal/neocon globalism) if it is wide and public; “free” speech outside the “guardrails” is only tolerated if it is unpopular, that is has negligible to small impact on public opinion. So for the same reason both Trump (right-wing nationalist tory) and Sanders and Corbyn (centre-left internationalist social-democrats) have been effectively muzzled. So for example books and “trade” and “specialist” media are not as heavily “aligned” as mass media, because very few people read them.
This is what is not allowed in “Washington Consensus” countries:
https://www.ft.com/content/5584b204-079a-11ea-a984-fbbacad9e7dd
2019-11-15 “The Thatcher revolution is coming under threat Labour plans for a nationalised broadband network are misguided Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s pledge to nationalise Openreach is a surprise and symbolic: BT’s 1984 flotation was a Thatcher-era flagship”
Questioning thatcherism/reaganism is a bit like was questioning the protestant settlement in England and Scotland.
I don’t care who funds the rascals.
I want the voters to have the power of recall if the bastards blatantly abuse their authority and reverse the policies that were in their manifesto.
Queer Starmer should replace Robber Reeves/Rachel Thieves with Spud. Nothing better than giving an idiot a ‘go’ at what he believes!
Would the cretin learn anything from his (all but brief) tenure in the limelight?
Ely pubs could hold a quiz night about it.
@ Kester Pembroke
Do your homework sonny! There is not a free market in citizenship or whatever other name one uses for purchasing the protection of a state by paying taxes. The USA will charge you tax on your worldwide income (net of any *allowable* deductions under double-taxation treaties) even if you leave; a few countries will accept millionnaires because they pay far more tax than the costr of their protection and services; the UK will levy IHT on all those who cannot *prove* thaty they have changed domicile and it is trying to remove thousands of unwanted illegal immigrants that are claiming asylum on the grounds, inter alia, that France is not a safe country …
There are better trolls
So mobile phone contacts have exit clauses
Democracy is in crisis to the extent that the state-sector labour cartels’ political wing – the Labour Party – took power on a small minority of votes and proceeded to plunder, bankrupt and destroy the nation.