Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

That would make becoming PM a huge financial sacrifice for talented people from poorer backgrounds. We could fill the House of Commons easily enough even if we didn't pay them at all; but they would all be rich people.

Being an MP should already be a full time job that pays well. I don't see where being PM changes that beyond having less ability to moonlight, which we don't want any of them doing anyway.

[garbon]

But surely the PM has extra responsibilities and duties than their 'equals.'

The majority of those other MPs would be more than happy to take the PM job.

Isn't that terrifying?

[Sheilbh]

I am very much against this populist BS of "omg pay them less". No, pay MPs a lot. Make it a very lucrative career choice, so others than sociopath talentless clowns or insane busybodies choose it. Just make sure to crack down on corruption as well.

I think it ties into anti-politics which is not helpful.

Interestingly I saw something from focus groups where they were given options of what they thought MPs should earn and the average was around £75k which isn't that far off from what they earn (around £80k).

I think the big problem and the most insane fact in British politics is that the public generally think that almost 10% of the budget goes on MPs' pay and perks

Edit: Incidentally - 40 years exactly since the Bermondsey by-election which was one of the nastiest in British history. Really interesting thread on it. As with slmost anything from the 80s, some striking echoes on the Labour side with recent fights:
https://twitter.com/labour_history/status/1629036253537529856

[Tamas]

Which reminds me: I wonder if we (as any democratic society) should concede that that maintaining a successful democracy requires educating the population on the basics of the working of the state. e.g. teaching high school kids high level summary of what the state is spending on and in what proportions.

This would be quite very risky as people in power could hijack it to make it propaganda, but the level of ignorance on what people are asked to vote on is just astonishing. I know barely anything and yet seemingly far more than a lot of people.

[Josquius]

Which reminds me: I wonder if we (as any democratic society) should concede that that maintaining a successful democracy requires educating the population on the basics of the working of the state. e.g. teaching high school kids high level summary of what the state is spending on and in what proportions.

This would be quite very risky as people in power could hijack it to make it propaganda, but the level of ignorance on what people are asked to vote on is just astonishing. I know barely anything and yet seemingly far more than a lot of people.

Yes.
Politics should be a standard senior class, not just a-level.
It doesn't need to be anything big. One hour a week on the level of RE maybe.

But then there's also the need to teach kids basic shit about being an adult...

[Sheilbh]

In the UK Citizenship is one of the required classes on the nationl curriculum - so the mandatory stuff in high school touches on this a bit (KS3 is roughly 11-14 and KS4 is 15-16:

Key stage 3

Teaching should develop pupils' understanding of democracy, government and the rights and responsibilities of citizens. Pupils should use and apply their knowledge and understanding while developing skills to research and interrogate evidence, debate and evaluate viewpoints, present reasoned arguments and take informed action.

Pupils should be taught about:

    the development of the political system of democratic government in the United Kingdom, including the roles of citizens, Parliament and the monarch
    the operation of Parliament, including voting and elections, and the role of political parties
    the precious liberties enjoyed by the citizens of the United Kingdom
    the nature of rules and laws and the justice system, including the role of the police and the operation of courts and tribunals
    the roles played by public institutions and voluntary groups in society, and the ways in which citizens work together to improve their communities, including opportunities to participate in school-based activities
    the functions and uses of money, the importance and practice of budgeting, and managing risk

Key stage 4

Teaching should build on the key stage 3 programme of study to deepen pupils' understanding of democracy, government and the rights and responsibilities of citizens. Pupils should develop their skills to be able to use a range of research strategies, weigh up evidence, make persuasive arguments and substantiate their conclusions. They should experience and evaluate different ways that citizens can act together to solve problems and contribute to society.

Pupils should be taught about:

    parliamentary democracy and the key elements of the constitution of the United Kingdom, including the power of government, the role of citizens and Parliament in holding those in power to account, and the different roles of the executive, legislature and judiciary and a free press
    the different electoral systems used in and beyond the United Kingdom and actions citizens can take in democratic and electoral processes to influence decisions locally, nationally and beyond
    other systems and forms of government, both democratic and non-democratic, beyond the United Kingdom
    local, regional and international governance and the United Kingdom's relations with the rest of Europe, the Commonwealth, the United Nations and the wider world
    human rights and international law
    the legal system in the UK, different sources of law and how the law helps society deal with complex problems
    diverse national, regional, religious and ethnic identities in the United Kingdom and the need for mutual respect and understanding
    the different ways in which a citizen can contribute to the improvement of their community, to include the opportunity to participate actively in community volunteering, as well as other forms of responsible activity
    income and expenditure, credit and debt, insurance, savings and pensions, financial products and services, and how public money is raised and spent

It wasn't a course when I was a kid I think it was introduced by Brown. But I think we covered some of this in guidance/PHSE.

I think it might be worth giving them a sense of the direction of travel - so more money on pensions and the NHS over time because we're ageing as a country. But I think the bigger issue isn't policy but maths - I don't think we (and I include myself in this) are very good at grasping very big amounts of money or things like probability/statistics that are really important in public policy debates.

Having said all that - it's possibly my favourite bit of research - but I remember reading a paper from the US that actually low information voters were the least like too engage in motivated reasoning when they were looking at news stories and the least likely to be biased when they engaged with information. The voters who know a lot tend to be highly partisan because they are highly engaged - or perhaps they know a lot and are highly engaged because they are highly partisan. There is maybe an argument that actually the safety/success of democracy depends on the ballast of relatively ill-informed, low information, non-engaged voters who pay attention to politics for the six weeks of an election campaign every 4-5 years and then get back to their far more rewarding and healthy lifestyles filled with normal interests

I also think there's something to Daniel Finkelstein's much repeated view of a non-political friend that, looking back at elections (in the UK) since universal suffrage - in general the party that was most prepared for government won. Obviously everyone will quibble with one or two elections (1970 and 2010 especially for me ) and not like the policies that's resulted in - but on a purely "ready to hold office" level, in the round the people have mainly got it right.

[Grey Fox]

How about making somewhere other than those 3 places worth living?

You can even put it Canadian-close (200 miles) to one of the places and linked with a nice railway.

Sure, maybe the federal & those provinces should do something.

[Sheilbh]

Incidentally fair to say the wheels are very much off the leadership campaign for the SNP.

There's been two polls - one of the public and one of SNP members showing that they prefer Kate Forbes as leader. Among SNP members I think this is probably because she's widely viewed as a very competent minister, while Yousaf has been in senior jobs for the last five years and not covered himself in glory (the best English comparison I can think of would be someone like Chris Grayling or Matt Hancock). But because of her views on gay marriage, despite not intending to do anything about them, the Greens have said they'll withdraw from the coalition. There are also reports (which seems very unlikely) that 6-7 SNP MSPs would not vote for her to become First Minister in parliament. If that happens the SNP would have fewer votes than a unionist candidate It won't happen but is a sign of how big the splits are in the party.

Meanwhile Yousaf who comes second in the polls is now having to ask questions about gay marriage. It's less looking for a window into his soul and noting that he wasn't present for the gay marriage vote. People are starting to ask about it because the reporting at the time was that he had deliberately worked his diary to make sure he had a plausibe excuse to miss the vote. He has now gone on the record that that didn't happen. He's probably the Sturgeon continuity candidate. One ex-minister from that government has called Yousaf a liar over this. And the person who can confirm whether or not Yousaf arranged to be on ministerial business away from parliament when the gay marriage vote happened is the then First Minister and now Sturgeon's nemesis: Alex Salmond

The candidate who has least support is Ash Regan. She'd only been a junior minister before but stepped down to vote against the Gender Recognition Reform Bill. Again the Greens would refuse to work with her as she is the out-and-out gender critical candidate. But she's also staking out a position as the indy fundamentalist saying independence doesn't need a referendum (v Humza who seems to be following Sturgeon's strategy that the next election will be a "de facto referendum" and Forbes who says it needs a proper referendum).

In the polls support for independence and for the SNP has fallen by about 5-10% since the Isla Bryson story broke - with the main beneficiary being Labour.

Honestly can't really see a positive way out of this in the short-term for the SNP. Yousaf is a very unpopular continuity candidate. Forbes or Regan in very different ways will lose the SNP their majority and expose a lot of infighting within the party. Neither feels like a good position going into either the Westminster or Holyrood elections in 2024 and 2025 respectively. The timing for the Scottish election may help as it'll be the peak of mid-term blues for the British government (likely Labour), but it'll also be 19 years of SNP rule - not sure which cycle will prevail.

[Valmy]

Those Scots sure are a contentious people.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I suppose they can't ignore issues apart from independence for ever. These have been piling up over the past 10 years or more. One that must particularly hurt is Scotland falling behind England on education...for the first time since the Reformation I believe 

[Josquius]

Scotland falling behind England on education how?
I've seen articles in the past of Scotland falling behind on test scores... Which honestly IMO isn't a big deal. It's measuring the wrong thing.
Whether the Scottish education system is better or worse than the English I have no idea. But I don't think it's actually an easy thing to measure these days.
I'd much rather my son gets a rounded education where he learns how to apply rational thought and be creative than score top test marks through east asian schooling.


PSHE- ah. I remember that. Tuesday and Thursday first period sit around in the form teachers class and do nothing most days. Very occasional hand out of sheets about random shit.
I do fear my experience wasn't too unrepresentative with this being a class left to random teachers rather than specialists.

[Richard Hakluyt]

It goes well beyond the test scores. I hesitate to put a single article up as there are just so many out there. Problems include the increasing exclusion of poor Scots from tertiary education and a history curriculum badly tainted by Scottish nationalism. There is also a funding problem, though that seems a perennial problem for most countries.

[Sheilbh]

I suppose they can't ignore issues apart from independence for ever. These have been piling up over the past 10 years or more. One that must particularly hurt is Scotland falling behind England on education...for the first time since the Reformation I believe 

Yeah education was such a core part of Scottish identity. It is a disgrace that they've fallen behind England especially on access to higher education for the working class.

I have the weird and unpopular from all sides take that tuition fees and student loans were fine and helpful in funding expansions of universities - but they should still be maxed at £3k per year as they were in 2010. I think the Scottish approach - as the stats on admissions show - is just a massive middle class bung that sounds progressive (which you could use to describe 90% of the SNP's "progressive" policies).

I'd add record and climbing deaths from drug overdoses, the state of NHS Scotland (despite avoiding Tory predations/the Lansley reforms), the ferries. Also Police Scotland which they created by merging all the police forces in Scotland (the SNP love nothing more than creating a single entity with "Scotland" in the title ) - since it was created about 10 years ago they've been through 4 chairs, 3 Chief Constables and at least two independent reviews into serious failings. They use the areas of devolved powers to create presentational differences with England/"Scots" institutions; but they refuse to use their devolved powers in ways that could actually help the poor rather than middle class bungs (for example - benefits are devolved and they've done nothing with them).

I think they've always been helped by English journalists and opinion-makers who basically don't know anything about Scottish politics and would treat Sturgeon like a foreign dignitary or only talk about the constitutional issue. It was a very good escape valve if the Scottish press was challenging. Also I remember Labour using "18 years of Tory underinvestment" for their entire time in office - and I think it had some purchase until about 2008. I think there is something similar with blaming Westminster. It refreshes itself obviously but vast areas of policy have been devolved and in many of those areas Scotland is increasingly falling behind England despite the latter being blighted by Westminster Tory rule.

[Zanza]

Looks like the Northern Ireland deal won't happen due to opposition from DUP and some Tories. Same procedure as every year... 

[mongers]

Looks like the Northern Ireland deal won't happen due to opposition from DUP and some Tories. Same procedure as every year... 

Or it's the Johnson clique trying to use it as a route back into power?