And after the Tory win, here comes the omnishambles.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

First of all here are links to a political and economic blog that went viral just before the election:

http://benjaminstudebaker.com/2015/05/02/britain-for-the-love-of-god-please-stop-david-cameron/

http://benjaminstudebaker.com/2015/05/06/13-terrible-tory-counterarguments/

http://benjaminstudebaker.com/2015/05/08/misinformation-how-the-tories-won/

Just to give an account of how some other folk look at the Tories economic record. I cannot but agree with young Mr Studebaker, and have been saying as much for the past few years, though not quite as elequently nor with as much rigour and precision.

However this is just, if you like, restating the new starting condidtions for the UK PLC under the incoming Tory administration. Please don't get me wrong, I am a conservative in most respects: a cultural conservative; a One-Nation Tory; and someone who does not object in principle to inherited wealth. However, I do think that the coalition got things grievously wrong, starting with austerity.

But now we come to the crux of what I consider to be the first really stupid thing they have to do alone, as a new administration, having shackled themselves to it in their manifesto. It is the repeal of the Human Rights Act and replacing it with a UK Rights Act.

http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/may/11/conservatives-human-rights-act-abolition-queens-speech

This is meant to appeal to the Little Englander mentality which the current Tory Party do love to stoke and exploit. Also it takes away electoral support from the more extreme right-wing parties.

However, there are a few problems:

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/12/scrapping-human-rights-act-would-breach-good-friday-agreement

As well as the Good Friday Agreement, the Scotland Act 1998 incorporated HRA into it at its heart, and changing it requires consent from the Scottish Parliament.

Also there is one other salient point. Membership of the EU has, as a pre-requisite, a signing-up to ECHR and the Court established by amongst others Churchill. So if we leave or amend our membership, we are well on the way out of the EU: which rather negates any requirement for a referendum on the UK's membership.

Given all this, does the panel think that at the end of this government's term of office :-

[Poll #2010868]

I mean to say, who needs the HRA? Obviously not ordinary people. Nor the Scots. Nor the Northern Irish. And the treaties that are dependent upon the HRA are all a bit useless anyway in comparison with having a proper English Tory government who will be harsh on scroungers, welfare recipients, the poor, the disabled, and Asylum Seekers, many of whom are criminals in ther own lands: like Gay Folk from Uganda?

Well, IMHO if some resurgent fundamentalist IRA  blow up the next Tory conference after the repeal of HRA and the defenestration of the Good Friday agreement, the Tories can consider it a Pyrrhic victory well earned.

Comments

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

I still think the secession is a bluff. Both UK's secession from the EU and Scotland's secession from the UK.

Ps. LJ cut please?

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

By the way, didn't Cameron "promise" to resign regardless of the election result? What is he still doing at No10?

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Apparently he promised he wouldn't stand for a third term...
I do believe Tony Blair made the same promise.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Politics is so full of liars. And the top politicians are the biggest liars - which is how they went to the top in the first place.

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

A strong, united EU requires the UK to stay in. A strong, prosperous UK benefits from staying in the EU. The US would also prefer that the UK remains in the EU. All good reasons for the UK not to secede and implicitly for Scotland not to secede.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

I don't know about that.

I don't think the US as a whole really cares one way or the other. Furthermore, it seems to me that the UK has a lot more in common with former colonies like Australia, India, Singapore, Canada, and the US than it does with Continental Europe, as such I think there is a fair amount to be gained by strengthening ties overseas and telling the EU to shove off if they have a problem with that.

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

The EU is the largest economical zone on the planet, with plenty US economic assistance in times of need, military support via NATO... and you think the UK or anyone else would tell the EU to shove off? Don't see that happening. The EU wouldn't even have started if the US wasn't an important supporter from the very start.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

The EU is also a basket case in no shape to exert any influence over it's immediate borders much less across oceans.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Well...the UK and France still have some small reach being nuclear powers, and together, allied with Germany and to a lesser extent the other EU nations, we should have rather more influence than we have been able to muster. This may be because we do not as yet have the appropriate federal structure...and that is pretty much down to the UK's lack of desire for any further integration.

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

The US has no problem controlling its borders, such as illegal immigration...

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's a pretty random observation.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

So what's the difference from the US?

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Bullshit.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

None of that changes if the EU disappears tomorrow, though. The individual nations that make up that situation remain, and we'd have the added benefit of not having to put up with nonsense from nations we're less inclined to deal with instead of the whole EU now (not that we've really treated "The EU" as an entity on a whole anyway).

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

So what exactly does EU bring to the table aside from a lot of baggage? People don't seem to like that question.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

So you do acknowledge that it's in the US interest that the EU should break apart?

...So you guys could fund both (or more) sides in another world war, eh?

we'd have the added benefit of not having to put up with nonsense from nations we're less inclined to deal with

Why should anyone take into account whom you're "inclined" to deal with?

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

But that doesn't take into account the inability of the average English voter to work these things out.
They didn't look too deeply into the economic arguments before deciding that George Osborne and the Tory party were the party of financial probity.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

I have greater faith in the average English voter than I do in the English leadership. Though I concede that that could be construed as damning with faint praise.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

The English leadership is being elected by that same English voter. So don't be so overly generous to the latter.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

A strong, prosperous UK benefits from staying in the EU... and out of the Eurozone.

The UK and Sweden seem to be in the sweet spot of enjoying access to huge markets for labor and goods while having their own currencies. I'm not seeing the downside to this arrangement.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Try to explain this to those in the UK for whom there's no middle ground between "being Brussels' slaves" and being "free proud and fully sovereign Britons".

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Makes me eat the furniture...

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

How much of this is just politicking for domestic consumption. Brussels can be responsible for everything that goes wrong while any credit for things that go well can be safely claimed by domestic politicians. They also make a better boogeyman than the UN. I can't see any politician in the UK who knows what's good for him or her giving this up.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Abso-bloody-lutely.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

I believe there is some deal that requires the UK to give up the pound and move towards the Euro. However, Greece has repeatedly fibbed about their and received hundreds of billions in loans without implementing reforms over the last six years, all while showing pictures of their biggest benefactor dressed as a Nazi, without getting kicked out. I expect that the UK could very politely bring up reasonable risks that must be overcome before adopting the Euro. As this wouldn't cost the other governments a single Euro, this could easily go on for decades if not centuries.