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#1

Off the Record / Re: Iran War?

Last post by crazy canuck - Today at 02:51:58 PM

China is likely just sitting back and watching its main rival implode.  After the United States has finished its self destruction, China can assess how best to proceed.  No need for them to rush into anything now.

#2

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 02:35:10 PM

I 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.

But also from his perspective (which I share) for example other models which tend to have a slightly different form of composition which is often regional. Not everywhere is as extreme as the US with two senators per state regardless of population but there is an element of that which I think has enough democratic legitimacy without actually being democratic to cause problems for a radical government with a democratic mandate in the Commons.

#3

Off the Record / Re: Iran War?

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 02:31:27 PM

How do you all reckon China will play this?

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?

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.

The flipside of that is, as you say, how much of a hit can China take on fuel and the Gulf matters a lot for export to Asia. I think they might be okay - they've been hugely diversifying their energy mix, plus trying to open new routes for energy. As for Europe though if there is a huge reduction in energy getting out of the Middle East then Russia becomes indispensable (and what might they want in return). So that issue may be solvable. I also think China - and other Asia-Pacific countries have quite big oil reserves - I understand that Japan for example basically has a reserve that's enough to deal with 9 months of no Middle Eastern energy exports.

This might also be part of the Houthis staying quiet because a hit on Chinese energy supply from the Middle East, plus Chinese trade with Europe might move the dial for their attitude.

On 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.

#4

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 02:15:21 PM

We 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

I 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.

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.)

The government's also passing a mandatory retirement age on the Lords.

I similarly don't particularly care about hereditaries - but I would say, and it's unfortunate this is true, but the House of Lords is the bit of Parliament that functions best and actually does its job. It is a very good revising chamber (in part it has to be because the Commons whether on private member's or government bills is really not good at legislating).

More broadly though I'd argue almost the opposite. In the last 30 years we've had the Human Rights Act, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Parliaments, creation of a Supreme Court, Brexit, seven referendums at a "national" or UK level, institution of Fixed Term Parliaments (now repealed) as well as an entire transformation of the House of Lords. To all of that I'd also add there's been huge reforms in how Parliament works, as well as the Freedom of Information Act and numerous public inquiries. I think collectively it's been a period of fairly constant, pretty broad constitutional reform - normally with an eye to "modernisation" - but I'd argue it's been pretty careless. There's not been an overarching view of it - far less a significant public debate about how the constitution should work. But I think collectively all of these changes have had pretty profound impacts on the way our politics, parliament and administration works.

I think a large part of that is actually because of an indifference to tradition. I think the historian Linda Colley is absolutely right (she's made the argument before but it's in The Gun, the Pen and the Ship which is her history of constitutions) has written about the British constitution, by which she doesn't mean just the institutions but sort of the how and why of those institutions - the operating manual. I think she's right in her argument that the British constitution is basically Whig history and is sort of embedded or symbolised in those traditions for want of a better word. But I think there's a generational, class and educational thing going on around these things so none of those traditions have the meaning that they previously did - but nothing else does either because it's not codified and there's not new traditions or conventions. So I think the tradition has in the past served an important purpose but we now just have form with actually quite a lot of constitutional reform in a piecemeal, unthought-through way. I'd add that I think America's cultural influence is huge here - when you see MPs talking about "checks and balances" or the "division of powers" or even hoping the Supremem Court overrules Parliament we're in a bit of trouble

As an example of the indifference to tradition - but also how that interacts with our constitution/the theory of how the system is supposed to work - there's another round of proposals to reform the way parliament works. Apparently many of the new MPs are pushing for fixed speaking slots because it is seen as a waste of time being in the chamber for a debate on the chance they might speak when they have emails and constituency work to attend to. Similarly they're looking at removing in-person voting and even considering allowing totally remote voting. I think both of these kind of go to the type of parliament we have and the way it's supposed to work. To be honest even without the fixed speaking slots, there's basically not really debates any more in parliament. Relatively few MPs speak with notes or ex tempore and they don't really seem to respond to other points other MPs have made - the more common approach now is to read a prepared speech (apparently increasingly drafted by ChatGPT ) 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.

But I don't think we can regenerate that and restore that narrative (arguably a grand narrative) that explains how we govern ourselves and why. I think it's gone and we're left with the formalities. Having said all of that I'm someone who backs the effective fusion of executive and legislature, a unicameral (or at least profoundly illegitimate and weak second chamber) approach and a microscopic role for the judiciary - our system has elements of that even if everyone seems to have forgotten it so I'd probably just run for it rather than go for a constitutional convention because my side would lose.

FWIW I think the actual crisis point on all of this would come if either Reform or the Greens won. There basically aren't any Reform peers - there are lots of Tories and Labour and lots of establishment types (ex generals, judges, spies, civil servants, businesspeople etc) sitting as crossbenchers. And I think if Reform or the Greens actually tried to do a lot of what they've said they want to do there would be an almighty fight with the civil service and the Lords. I think that's why Farage has in the past called for abolition and replacement with an elected Senate - I think the Greens have also backed that.

Edit: Also in terms of alternatives I actually really like Ireland's wildly 1930s corporatist Seanad. There's "administrative", "agricultural", "labour", "cultural" etc panels who elect a number of Senators as well as some nominated directly by the Taoiseach and some university constituencies. I don't like that it does tend to be party-political as I think a lot of the cross-benchers are very valuable. But otherwise I quite like it - inevitably it's pretty unpopular in Ireland and has almost been abolished a couple of times (largely because it's undemocratic, elitist, expensive etc).

#5

Off the Record / Re: Iran War?

Last post by OttoVonBismarck - Today at 01:31:03 PM

I don't imagine it would be more than a trickle--Iran's export facility on Kharg Island in the far west of the Persian Gulf handles about 90% of all their crude oil exports. They wouldn't have the infrastructure to export their full load so to speak elsewhere.

It is telling Trump isn't taking any action to interdict Iranian oil vessels though, and I imagine there's a couple reasons for that. Most based on Trump being afraid of pissing off China right now.

#6

Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...

Last post by Crazy_Ivan80 - Today at 01:19:48 PM

That would actually make more sense than what the flip is present now

#7

Off the Record / Re: Iran War?

Last post by Tamas - Today at 01:08:05 PM

Iran's export to China is continuing,  apparently from another port? One outside the straits.

This is humiliating for the US.

#8

Off the Record / Re: Iran War?

Last post by Crazy_Ivan80 - Today at 12:54:15 PM

Iran's export to China is continuing,  apparently from another port? One outside the straits.

#9

Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...

Last post by Syt - Today at 12:47:09 PM

  

#10

Off the Record / Re: Iran War?

Last post by OttoVonBismarck - Today at 11:57:41 AM

So I subscribe to the South China Morning Post, it's not state media but they don't have full editorial independence, I think they're probably still some of the best English language insight into Chinese thinking (which is why I subscribe.)

They've had a bunch of articles about the war largely emphasizing the moves China is making to diversify itself away from reliance on fossil fuel bottle necks in the Middle East. Particularly, building out more of its own oil production (China actually does produce a good bit of oil, not as much as the oil majors, nor nearly enough to satisfy its own desires), but they do have some fields they can tap into more--they've noted Xinjiang as an example. They've also been emphasizing the goals of generating more non-fossil fuel energy and decarbonizing in general.

Reading between the lines it sounds like they're in a holding pattern and just saying "we're working to be less affected by such things."