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[Egan_BW]

(Yet another reason to dismiss the idea of Elected Head Of State idea. Whether directly/college-'elected' or appointed by the PM, depending upon which country you want to emulate, I think it shows that the ultimate Sortition method of 'accident of birth' (with fallback options) turned out better than than many of those put into power by electorate/selectorate/general political repositioning.)

This is a UK thread so I guess monarchism is technically allowed but know that I'm making the eyes narrowing face at this. :p

also PTW

[EuchreJack]

(Yet another reason to dismiss the idea of Elected Head Of State idea. Whether directly/college-'elected' or appointed by the PM, depending upon which country you want to emulate, I think it shows that the ultimate Sortition method of 'accident of birth' (with fallback options) turned out better than than many of those put into power by electorate/selectorate/general political repositioning.)

This is a UK thread so I guess monarchism is technically allowed but know that I'm making the eyes narrowing face at this. :p

also PTW

The sole and best argument in favor of an elected leader over a despotic/monarch is that leadership can change without one or more people dying.

Also: No King Nonce as arbitrator of England's fate.

[Egan_BW]

So you're saying that if we had a totally democratic system except when the head of state gets voted out they also get executed would be exactly as bad a system as monarchy?

[EuchreJack]

So you're saying that if we had a totally democratic system except when the head of state gets voted out they also get executed would be exactly as bad a system as monarchy?

... actually, I feel like that would be a major improvement (I'm an American)

[Egan_BW]

So you're saying that if we had a totally democratic system except when the head of state gets voted out they also get executed would be exactly as bad a system as monarchy?

... actually, I feel like that would be a major improvement (I'm an American)

I dunno, giving the incumbent an even stronger incentive to win might make things worse. Like imagine if someone had to gerrymander like their life literally depends on it.

[EuchreJack]

So you're saying that if we had a totally democratic system except when the head of state gets voted out they also get executed would be exactly as bad a system as monarchy?

... actually, I feel like that would be a major improvement (I'm an American)

I dunno, giving the incumbent an even stronger incentive to win might make things worse. Like imagine if someone had to gerrymander like their life literally depends on it.

Not everyone. Just the Head of State.
The 22nd Amendment is still in force.
President-for-life takes on it's best meaning.

[MorleyDev]

Counterpoint: If the head of state is a figurehead, and so literally an automated process in human form, why not replace them with an actual automated process and remove the human element entirely?

But I feel like it's getting off topic xD Not that much has changed beyond "yup, shit be fucked".

Liz Truss did some interviews with local radio stations, presumably expecting easy questions and not realising that local stations don't have to care about you revoking their access to future interviews. So she got asked actually hard questions, stumbled through them, and the markets immediately dropped in response to her refusing to achnowledge anything was wrong.

[Egan_BW]

Counterpoint: If the head of state is a figurehead, and so literally an automated process in human form, why not replace them with an actual automated process and remove the human element entirely?

Hatsune Miku 2024

ok I'm done

[anewaname]

Does the UK government provide data showing the sum of tax income received by the government, by tax bracket, by corporate or individual, and by year? I mean it like this, "can common citizens see some aggregate details in the format of,  sum_of_taxes_collected for [year, tax_rate, provider(corporate/individual/organization)]?"

It should be clear to the public where the tax money is coming from, and where it is not coming from. I was just listening to a 2015 John Cleese interview and he says that the top income tax rate in the UK was 83% at one time... The wiki shows that was in 1974. Now the UK's top rate is 40%. It seems the wealthy will have enough surplus wealth to create their own private authoritarian regimes now.

And, with regard to the USA's 22nd amendment, it occurred because the wealthy wanted discord within government to avoid another FDR:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

FDR was voted into office because he offered change, at the time when the Great Depression was killing commoners. He delivered change for the common people and those changes cut into the wealthy's profit margin and also their control over "the workers". He was re-elected three times and in the four elections, he got 80%+ of the electoral vote and 55-65% of the popular vote, despite opposition to him from the equivalent of "the Koch Brothers from 100 years ago" and their paid supporters and news outlets.

The reforms and programs he produced, both protected commoners and created jobs, created an excellent education system for the poor, and delivered on the "house and car" American Dream. He effectively created the middle-class, including better schooling.

Since then, the tax burden shifted away from the wealthy+corporations and onto the middle class, Glass-Steagall and other regulations were de-fanged, and the grandkids of the 1950's middle class are the 2020's "new" homeless of the "new" great depression.

I don't know the UK's relative history of beneficial reforms that were degraded over time by capitalist-authoritarians... but the Truss cutting taxes for the rich indicates she is not the one that will fix the system and that the UK has farther to go before it hits bottom. The sooner the commoners know who is and is not paying taxes, the sooner they will start working together against their common enemy.

[Lidku]

With how badly the pound is apparently crashing against the dollar, I don't really know the extent of the UK rich will be "rich" any longer. That is unless, there is a massive drive from that class, to switch the pound for the dollar en masse. Wouldn't such a theoretical phenomenon crash the pound into deeper devaluation?

[Starver]

If you're anywhere rich enough, a falling pound is a bonus you can take advantage of. (That's a via-Google link, because going straight to the source like I would like hits the usual terrible cookie/subscription/notification pop-over mess and I'd love to give more click-credit to the source, but it's not helping matters.)

There was something yesterday (on the thankfully mostly popover-free BBC website, but buried deep in the flurry of more recent articles, it seems) about a close current associate of Liz Truss who has probably made money for his hedgefund over the last few days, and certainly did very well on the immediate post Brexit Referendum turmoil.  Even I had a small number of employee-shares in a company I was in, that I happened to get cashed out shortly after. Slightly better return, above 'normal' benefits of stock-options, but not exactly high volume or insta-trading at the optimum moment (the sale was initiated with no thoughts to catching any waves) and certainly didn't comparatively enrich me significantly at such low volume. But if you're willing to take a stance with significant funds behind you... then you're laughing all the way to whichever bank you want to go to (offshore, included).


(PS, I'm not a monarchist, I just find no 'republican' idea to be particularly attractive. Whether it's Head-of-State and Head-of-Government rolled into one (via whatever electoral system puts them there), as a 'consolation prize' position by the government for a popular figure semi-retired from active popular politics to act as supposed balance/arbiter to the PM/etc, the individual who has truly become "the power on the throne" by political manouvering (no longer a democracy)nor of course the one whose titles prior to this point 'general'ly involve a military rank of some kind and whose primary 'electorate' also have military positions. Just like I'm against an elected second house (I'd prefer a kind of sortition/long-term jury method, at least in part, mixed with at least the current level of somewhat meritocratic appointments if not a better one with less scope for infilling with political cronies) because sheer populism (at best) or self-serving manipulation of that populism (getting on towards being the worst of the situation in 'democratic' scenarios) is bad enough in almost all elected chambers, as we can see. But that was never my major or even intentionally leading point. And neither is this.)

[McTraveller]

Just how much power does the PM have anyway?  Can they really unilaterally create legislation like that, or is this just Truss getting the blame, when it's really a larger group?  I'm not that familiar with how parliamentary governments work.

In the US, even the president doesn't really have that much power (all the griping about executive orders notwithstanding).

[Starver]

They can't (usually!) enact whole new laws, or arbitrarily remove old ones, but they and their ministers (especially in the Treasury?) and even various subordinates may have the ability to enact secondary legislation within previously defined scopes of power. If, to avoid problems responding to other issues, power is given to raise or lower degrees of effect of a given law (which drugs are on which list of relative legality/illegality, say) then there may be some discussion about how radical the change is, but if it's adjudged within the scope of the leeway already provided in the Primary Legislation then it can probably be done, at least pending an amendment/addition to the Primary to cover increasingly creeping edge-cases with more exacting coverage/allowance (as much to set in stone what they don't think they want just as trivially reversed, by 'tye next lot', if they think they can cajole enough support to do so).

And even saying "we intend to..." do something-or-other can make people jittery/elated ahead of any hoop-jumping they actually need to go through to implement those intentions. Probably the same as even a more tightly constrained HoG, but with the general uncertainty about how much they may end up being actually constrained/second-guessed by parliament, e.g. being balked by the Law Lords or considerations raised by the HoL in general.


Basically, you'll find things like Income Tax written on bits of vellum, rolled up somewhere in the stacks of the Commons Library (I think), as with almost every other bit of legislation (up until 2017, I think, if they actually revoked the need for true vellum), but adjustments to the rates involved won't typically be scratched in on (or over) any such scrolls already ingrossed there.

[MorleyDev]

Proposing unpopular tax changes that are disproportionate in their effects on the wealthy compared to the poor, approval ratings plummitting, and Labour soaring ahead in the polls, all whilst pigheadedly refusing to change course...

You know, when Liz Truss talked about wanting to emulate Thatcher, I didn't think she meant the *end* of Thatcher's time in office.

[Grim Portent]

Truss has reportedly forbidden King Charles from speaking on environmental matters. Which might be an overstep of the bounds of the convention that the monarch isn't supposed to publicly voice opinions.

For reference, Charles has been an advocate of environmental conservation and pro-Green policy since the 70s. Truss denies that Anthropogenic Climate Change exists.