Your service is appreciated. I've said god knows how many times, it won't be perfect with Labour but it's the best chance we've got. The Tories have ruined for support for autistic kids like my son, we need something better.
Rishi Sunak to call general election in UK today - General election for July 4th
- Thread starter Wallace Wells
- Start date
- Status
Your service is appreciated. I've said god knows how many times, it won't be perfect with Labour but it's the best chance we've got. The Tories have ruined for support for autistic kids like my son, we need something better.
No country in the world has a government exactly the same as any other. It probably depends what criteria you're looking at.
What do you mean by this? Like the structure of the political system?
Most former British colonies have a Westminster Parliamentary system that is largely the same though they all have some differences (for example, does their Parliament have an Upper House, do they have a ceremonial President or Monarch, do they have fixed terms etc)
I mean this idea that the "leader" goes to a second party (king) and has this whole process.
I am just a dumb American that has never heard of that before.
Yep, but when we say the King 'makes' them, it's actually the PM of the day who goes to the monarch and basically says here's a list of people I want to be in the House of Lords and then the monarch agrees with them; the monarch could technically disagree but they wouldn't as that basically causes a huge crisis. They can only do it at certain times - in January, when the PM leaves office (so Rishi will get to do it in a few months)
For example, there is a person called Charlotte Owen who was given a seat in the Lords at the age of 29. Her actual title is Baroness Owen of Alderly Edge (you get a title along with it) and every time she sets foot in the actual chamber (even if she just turns round and leaves) she will get £332 a day plus expenses.
What had she done to deserve the privilege to decide, discuss and vote on laws that could affect everyone until the day she dies? She was an intern under successive different people.
Or, she's allegedly Boris Johnson's daughter, which is a good way to show the PM can basically pick whoever they like. We actually don't know if it is his daughter, as he might have 7 or 8 kids
Oh ok, yes this is very common.
For example, in Australia the Prime Minister goes to the Governor General (the King's representative) to call an election.
Similar systems in Canada and New Zealand, where the Executive is a Governor General who represents the Crown that the Prime Minister visits to dissolve Parliament and have an election.
What a weird elitest comment…. It encapsulates everything that's wrong with capitalism and adds nothing to the topic
Back on topic, I just get a sense that rishi sunak has had enough and just wants to accept a nice easy job on a corporate board. He's either just too delusional or dumb to realise how disliked he is
I guess it's just because I live in the backwater country that overthrew it's "King", but it is just so bizarre to me that you have the political leader of your country go to someone else to get something like this done.
Then again the US is ass backwards as fuck in about a billion other areas so who am I to judge lol
Yeah, there's no way it's a viable plan for delaying the election. But I could see a sliver of logic behind finding a new leader. I feel like their polls are at rock bottom atm, and they're left with the die hard tory voters who would vote for them just because they always have. You know, the kind of person who treats a political party like a football team, making their support a part of their personal identity.
And generally, a new leader often comes with a poll bump, just because they're an unknown quantity so there's a sense of change and optimism there. It wouldn't be much of a poll bump, but I could see some reform votes swinging back to tory in such a situation. Nowhere near enough to save them from defeat though, and continues the trend of making the party look insane to the majority of voters.
It's more a tradition really - the monarch does technically have some powers still, but they never directly use them. They do have meetings with the PM every fortnight or so but nobody knows what is said in them. It was actually seen as very poor form when David Cameron hinted at what had been said in one meeting, with Buckingham Palace saying that this had 'caused displeasure' - in monarch terms, that's pretty bad
Yeah I understand it must seem like a weird imposition. That you have to ask the King, or a Governor General representing the King, to have an election. What if they say no, for instance?
It's just that, in practice nowadays, neither the King nor the Governor General is ever going to say no because that would basically lead to a Constitutional crisis and probably result in the country becoming a Republic.
And if you're next question is; what's stopping a Prime Minister for asking for an election every few months whenever they feel like it if the King/Governor General can't say no? Because that would be political suicide for the Prime Minister, the voters would get super annoyed and their party would suffer electorally.
Do you say that the powers are never used but what happens if they ever tried to actually use them?
Is there some legal process to basically ignore them? Or would everybody just kind of stand around aghast at the fact that it had been done?
Ha exactly! That's what I asked above.
Don't get caught up in the whole King thing though, the King (or his representative in other countries that have him as a head of state) doesn't control it and basically can't say no. He doesn't have the power, it's basically a tradition/ceremonial thing.
All sorts of technicalities, people will say yes he could say no. But in reality, no he couldn't. I'm not a monarchist, I'd like to see them abolished, but this isn't a big anti democratic thing, where the king has any power.
Saying that - in the 70s, I think, there was a big crisis in Australia where the queen dissolved the government or something - I'd have to look it up but it happened.
Constitutional monarchy vs constitutional republic. The same process exists in Denmark, for example.
In countries where there is both a prime minister and a president, the president stands in for the monarch here.
Yes the Whitlam dismissal, which wasn't so much the Governor General saying "no" as it was him replacing the Prime Minister with a new Prime Minister after some shenanigans had gone on in the Australian Senate.
There was another election shortly after where the Prime Minister who got dismissed (Gough Whitlam) had his party smashed at the election because they were perceived as shambolic and scandal plagued.
Though that sort of thing really couldn't happen today since the laws about Senate appointment in Australia that caused the crisis in the first place have been changed.
As said above, we'd be fast-tracked to a republic pronto. It's one of these weird tradition/courtesy things that fundamentally has no basis in reality.
If there's any reality it's based in, it's that King Charles I pissed off the various Parliaments so badly during the English Civil War that they cut his head off, and every subsequent Monarch got the message that when Parliament asks you to do something, you fucking do it lol
Oh okay. So it is a " The emperor has no real power but he still gets to wear very nice clothes" kind of situation.
The position exists. The permission is asked. In reality though they are just bystanders.
As with very high up political things in U.K. nobody really knows what would happen. A lot of our system is based around the fact that it was set up for very rich people, by very rich people who would do everything basically by gentlemen's agreements. So there isn't anything to stop the monarch exercising his political power (for example, every new law has to get royal assent - he/she could refuse any law) but they never would. It would probably cause a crisis but nobody wants that to happen.
An example of not wanting a crisis is that nobody tried to pass a law about horse riders having to wear helmets during Elizabeth's reign (u14s do, everyone else doesn't have to) because the rumour is the Queen wouldn't want that as she preferred to ride without a helmet (also a bit of a pointless thing to make a law about but again, good example)
I guess there's some constitutional nuance to that, but yeah, fair assessment!
Yep. Our royal family is a really mad thing when you assess it rationally, but it provides a (mildly terrifying tbh) comfort blanket that a lot of the country still seem unable to comprehend doing without. I'm usually in the minority outside of my friendship and artistic circles in being republican.
Off topic, but I just want to say that I'm glad there are people that know the difference between a lectern and a podium.
Holy fuck if the Tories work to block a democratic general election they will be wiped out completely - more so. Dozens of seats at best. Can't they see that?
Egos, paychecks and the Party before the country.
Well duh.
One is a light that you hold in your hand and the other one is a medication that helps if you have the poops.
Coyote Starrk important for understanding the nature and dynamics of the whole thing is that the office of Prime Minister is a position that was never meant to exist, and has itself arisen out of convention that got semi-codified down the line. We spent a couple centuries simultaneously denying such a notion existed - why, it'd be an anathema to the notion of all Men of the House being equal! - while also readily referring to the man who obviously was in charge of the party which held the majority in Parliament by the term; first formal reference to it is in 1917, meanwhile the first person we generally recognise as being Prime Minister ran the nation in the early 18th century. Legally, it's a mix of them being First Lord of the Treasury (ie, having command of the nation's finances), having the King's permission (Monarch said I'm allowed to say this), and presumption of the aforementioned majority (whatever I want/need to do I'll get a law passed for it). In practise, whoever lives at 10 Downing Street calls the shots
You could basically copy this and swap out key words for any question about the way the U.K. government works.
That.....is so fucking confusing. While at the same time I am a huge history nerd so it's fascinating as well. My favorite time period of Europe to study and read about is anything regarding the Dark ages all the way to the Renaissance. So anything from the late 1700s to modern day I am basically entirely ignorant of.
That's crazy to me though. Because given the importance of the position I had assumed it had been an official one for far longer than what you described. I'm actually a little bit blown away by that realization.
Also worth mentioning that there are plenty of symbolic oddities in US systems too right? I don't think that country is immune? I'm not an expert, but I feel like, especially with Trump and everyone freaking out, that I've read of plenty of "in theory this person could just do whatever they wanted here instead of following protocol", but they never actually do, because their ability to do that is largely symbolic. IIRC in theory electoral college reps could declare whatever winner they liked, which would be a similar or greater level of chaos than Charles denying the government something.
All part of the big wrap of what's referred to as the 'unwritten' constitution of the UK. There is no singular document detailing how everything is supposed to work, but an array of norms as derived from or enshrined in various and separate laws, and a whole mix of 'well that's just how we do things'.
Indeed, on paper the whole system still runs back to the monarchy, because after that brief spat in the 17th century, we've just not really established a source of constitutional power otherwise. Parliament, technically, meets with the permission of the monarch - which is why the Prime Minister has to go to them to ask to dissolve it, and why there's a mace in the chamber which if removed means no business can be done, because the mace embodies the Monarch's permission for them all to meet and create legislation.
Edit:
Also yes, the USA being on the older side of many modern nation states means there's quirks and conventions that others decidedly learned lessons from (particularly in writing stuff down)
I'm still predicting a usual tightening of regs polls pre-election. I would actually think any closing of the gap would favour Labour as it'd scare wavering voters who don't want to see another Tory government.
P.S Sunak on BBC breakfast right now. He is still shit as usual.
P.S Sunak on BBC breakfast right now. He is still shit as usual.
Rishi ont 'elly now.
Teeth freshly whitened. Fake smiling energy at the beginning of the interview reminiscent of Cameron's "pumped up!".
Teeth freshly whitened. Fake smiling energy at the beginning of the interview reminiscent of Cameron's "pumped up!".
How the ever loving fuck are the tories getting positive poll numbers still?
It's like the Soccer World Cup but only European countries participate. Takes place every 4 years like the World Cup. Whenever England are close to winning this or the World Cup, there are talks about potentially having a national day off to celebrate.
Yup. Once you understand that, it's amazing the place functions as well as it does, considering.
Yes, more or less. Part of it is that there are norms that have never been tested or broached to the degree that Trump has (because he literally doesn't care about laws or norms), and part of it is that judicial interpretation, which would normally clarify what can and can't be done and is typically based on legal precedent, has been increasingly subject to institutionalized hijacking by the right…hence things like overturning Roe, despite being legal precedent for half a century, or why Americans can carry AR-15s with minimal restrictions, despite precedent and constitutional wording suggesting otherwise.
View: https://x.com/jessicaelgot/status/1793532164962971869?s=46
Kick Sunak out and stop the barbaric Rwanda scheme. Good stuff.
Seeing conservative parties that have gone off the deep end get wrecked feeds my soul, especially given their stickiness the last few years. Brazil and Poland managed it, hope the UK follows.
One of the few consistent points Labour's had too, so this has just teed it up perfectly for them
Why would you call it now? Rishi's only "accomplishment" (hate to call it that) is Rwanda. Wouldn't you wait until after the flights so you can say "look what I did"? All the time, money and energy that has gone into that. Baffling he'd do the election before seeing his plan come to fruition.
Is he hoping Rwanda is attractive enough that people will reelect him to see a plane take off?
Is he hoping Rwanda is attractive enough that people will reelect him to see a plane take off?
you just know that the moment Labour stop them, that the right wing shit rags will instantly have headlines along the lines of 'starmer going open borders/letting anyone in'
- Status