Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on Today at 09:19:48 AMI think the concern is that if it ceases to be "The House of Lords" then the people will want the second chamber to be elected; possibly using some sort of PR to act as a balance to the first-past-the-post elections for the Commons. This would remove patronage from the government and also give the second chamber more validity and, in the long run, probably more power.Yeah - that was Herbert Morrison's line which I think also goes for the monarchy: "the very irrationality of the House of Lords and its quaintness are our safeguards for modern British democracy". Basically if you make it rational and part of the "efficient" constitution it will destabilise everything else.
Quote from: Jacob on Today at 11:35:37 AMHow do you all reckon China will play this?I suspect there are planners right now whose goal is to take Taiwan thinking it is very much not an issue for them if the US has to be deploying (and ideally redeploying) resources from the Pacific to the Middle East.
At the moment it seems mostly to be "keep your head down and let the US waste political and military capital" I suppose. But what makes more sense for them? Support Iran (clandestinely, of course), to increase the severity of the bleeding for the US? Or put pressure on Iran to free up oil through the Hormuz (which they need), but also thereby implicitly supporting Trump?
QuoteOn a different China tack, I wonder to what degree China is taking lessons on Taiwan from this. If Russia gets and expensive and much longer than anticipated quagmire, and the US gets one as well... will China choose to avoid that risk? On the other hand if Xi does oversee a quick successful annexation of Taiwan instead of a quagmire, that'll bolster his credibility. But if it doesn't...?Maybe - I think the bigger lesson from this is that if you've got big strategic aims (like regime change) you can't go halfway. I think China may still try that through a blockade of some sort but I'm not sure China will draw many negative lessons from this conflict given that there seems to be a very real resistance from the US towards ground troops - I don't think that'd be seen as relevant from a Chinese perspective.
Quote from: Tamas on Today at 07:43:13 AMWe get a Green government and we lose our nukes as well, which will quickly turn the island status from an asset to a liability.Just to add as Polanksi has expanded on this - he doesn't trust Putin at all but does feel that he can "build a relationship" with him

Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on Today at 09:07:17 AMI have no love for the hereditary peers, but now that they are totally removed from Parliament I question too the "trappings" of the upper house. My understanding is the whole purpose of "Life Peerages" is the House of Lords had to be made up of, well, Lords. Except the desire was to not continue creating more hereditary lords, so life peerages were introduced.The government's also passing a mandatory retirement age on the Lords.
But now that being a hereditary lord essentially is a pure honorarium, aside from a few that have specific ceremonial duties related to the royal family, one has to question why the upper house should even be called the "House of Lords."
A Lord is, in every honest sense of the word, intrinsically a concept related to hereditary nobility. While the life peers aren't hereditary, they essentially ape the concept.
Makes me wonder why not just call it a Senate? I understand in Britain obsession with tradition is typically impossible to underestimate, but this body is now functionally identical to the Canadian Senate (other than that the Canadian Senate went from life tenure to mandatory retirement at age 75--which is frankly a good idea.)

) in order to get a clip for social media. I've seen some academics who study both say it feels like it's becoming more like Congress in that way.Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on Today at 12:54:15 PMIran's export to China is continuing, apparently from another port? One outside the straits.
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