Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[crazy canuck]

I recall back in the noughties when I'd dream of a golden age where the Tories are dead and buried and the Lib Dems take their place as the other main party.
If only the Lib Dems had their shit in order then we could actually be heading there.

But yes. The Tories have a floor that is even harder to break than the Labour one.

The thing is - if this happened the Lib Dems would eventually be pretty much exactly like the Tories.

I can point to an example of this: British Columbia.  There wasa long-time "Conservative" Party that ruled the province for a number of years called the SoCreds.  SoCreds collapsed in scandal, leading to a left-wing NDP government.  With a giant void on the right side of the spectrum the provincial Liberals stepped in - but this pretty quickly made the Liberals the "Conservative" party in BC.

For readers who won't be able to spot the error, the BC Social Credit party was not a Conservative Party.  It was a coalition party of supporters of both the Federal Conservative and Liberal parties.  That coalition of supporters then went to the BC Liberal party which had no affiliation with the Federal liberals.  It went on to hold power for more than a decade.

That party continues to this day as the coalition party opposing the NDP.  Although it has undergone a name change.

TLDR, coalition parties do work, but beware the ideological purists.

[crazy canuck]

The thing is - if this happened the Lib Dems would eventually be pretty much exactly like the Tories.

I can point to an example of this: British Columbia.  There wasa long-time "Conservative" Party that ruled the province for a number of years called the SoCreds.  SoCreds collapsed in scandal, leading to a left-wing NDP government.  With a giant void on the right side of the spectrum the provincial Liberals stepped in - but this pretty quickly made the Liberals the "Conservative" party in BC.

My understanding is that ex-SoCred folks directly took over the BC Liberal party. It's not that the BC Libs "stepped in", it's that the SoCreds continued as they were, wearing the skin of the BC Liberal party which they took over after the collapse of the SoCreds.

That's not the only place BB goes wrong. The BC social credit party included federal liberals. The coalition just moved to a new brand after the Social Credit brand became tainted.

And now the coalition party is moving to another new brand after another tainting.  Although this move has not been very smooth.  And the Conservative part of the coalition seems to be bolting for a Conservative Party.   BC might to undergoing its own Reform moment and the NDP could not be happier.

[Sheilbh]

Maybe. But at the same time we've we're rapidly toppling over the pit into a trades black hole. The last people to qualify over the apprenticeship system are hitting retirement age right now. Over the 80s we were training basically nobody and then when we realised this and started it again the numbers just weren't enough.

We need to increase the numbers of apprenticeships for sure. Although, again, the lines are blurrier now - for example when I was in a lawfirm I was a mentor for a solicitor apprentice, they will get a law degree but came straight out of school on an apprenticeship route. There's similar schemes in IT, accountancy, education etc.

I think we are at about 10-20% of the government's target for number of apprentices.

But with trades I also slightly wonder about perhaps sector specific issues. I've said before but the UK has an incredibly fragmented construction and trades sector with well over 50% being micro-enterprises (low turnover and 10 or fewer employees). I feel like consolidation would possibly increase the number of apprenticeships - I also feel like there could be a role for something like a UCAS for apprenticeships with a single space advertising them all.

I also have read that they have a real problem attracting women and minority applicants and again I wonder if there's possibly something for that industry/sector to look at. I think there's been good work on increasing diversity in, say, IT or engineering - and I feel like something similar might be worth looking at (but again really difficult with lots of very small businesses).

Fair enough to say we're a services economy so lots of people with humanities degrees is exactly what we need... but we also need builders.
And when many of these degree educated people are earning 30k a year in call centres vs. 70k a year for a decent plumber....It is in the best interest of many of them for this to be more of an even choice.

But again you've immediately slipped into Sir Gavin Williamson territory

My point was that 75% of university students are studying degrees that I think are vocational in a service based economy: law, medical professions, accountancy, business (this doesn't include creative arts courses either). And you've straight away read that as "not really vocational" and basically humanities.

Our biggest export sector is unidentified professional services which the FT did some digging in and worked out was largely consultancy. Those business degrees aren't loads of "humanities" students - they're our equivalent of highly skilled workers in the Mittelstand.

Honestly I'd go further than domestic students and have spots for local students. The town and gown divide you see in places like Durham is just insane.
I loved that in Uppsala going to one of the top universities in Scandinavia was something locals would just casually decide to do without much stress over it.

No Maybe if we had regional universities like a US state system - I feel like the University of London is probably the closest to that?

Incidentally another place I think the UK system sucks and needs smashing- the way you broadly decide what you're going to study at 16 and then are really railroaded into it at 18 and then after you've left uni going back and doing any education is a really weird and special thing to do.
We should have things a lot more open to do a course here and there and cobble together degrees.

Speak for England. It's not a thing in Scotland where you do more highers and there is more openness to changing degrees or doing a major/minor thing. I agree, I know Gove has supported it but I think moving to something like the IB would be better - and I think there should be more flexibility once you're in university, possibly like in the US.

And I don't know about not doing any education again. I know loads of people who are older and going back to study - and it's something I want to do at some point although it's time and money depending so probably never

[Sheilbh]

In big news at the moment, the Tory defection is pretty dodgy.

So the Tory whips have clearly dumped a lot on the Sunday Times over her. I'm not sure it fully works - and I feel in part it must be trying to warn off any other possible defectors.

On the other hand this Telegraph story is too perfect to be true - inevitably it is possible it's all about a planning dispute

bat020
@bat020
"It has also emerged that Ms Elphicke is seeking planning permission to convert a garage she owns in Dover into a two-storey house, and needs the support of the Labour-run local council to overrule objections from neighbours."

The proposal:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/10/sue-gray-faces-questions-role-natalie-elphicke/
Love the opening line "questions to answer" about "turncoat MP"