@matildagirl What a treat. Thanks, I needed that! What a brilliant talent.
RE: Boris Johnson
He may be gone, but this actually isn't good news. He is still leader until September and during August will be potentially the worst strikes in a long time in the UK from all different sectors of the economy. Nothing will be addressed, and this will cause potential mayhem.
But in September when the Conservatives (the party in power) can elect their new leader, you should know that all the listed candidates are pandering to the same right-wing fascists as Boris was. None of them have any plan or ideas how to address the problems the UK is facing, but instead want to concentrate on immigration and deportations, targeting disabled people, attacking what they deem 'woke' culture, and cutting taxes for corporations. They are horrible people.
The sooner we can get a general election in the UK to vote these bunch of self-serving parasites out of the UK, the better!
The public can't vote them out until 2024 unless the current government (the Conservatives) call an earlier general election.
Right now, about 150,000 members of the Conservative party are going to decide for the whole of the UK who the next Prime Minister is after Boris Johnson. So far it has been whittled down to Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss. The final results will be announced in early September. Neither candidates are a true departure from Boris Johnson. Both have spoken positively about him, and are being backed by the same people who worked under him. It will be same types of policies and the same divisive rhetoric.
The whole situation is extremely depressing. They have had 3 leaders in 5 years. The Conservatives cannot govern. But more depressingly, has been how the public have been stupid enough to vote the Conservatives in not once, but 4 times in the last 12 years! So many people have been cast under the spell of their lies and many still are. Since the pandemic, there has slowly been an awakening where a larger number of people have woken up to their lies and poor governance - since it has really been more directly exposed, but it is difficult to know whether people would be still stupid enough to vote them back in again.
The UK political situation is depressing and it is why I don't provide much commentary and discussion about the UK political state of affairs, and it is why I often don't wish to enter into much of any political discussion even outside UK politics - as I get depressed about the future of the world when I see globally so many people are brainwashed by all these political and corporate powers who wish to keep their grip on power and many people disillusioned.
There is very little I can do personally about the situation, other than vote when I have the opprotunity to vote. I do not have the energy to debate people in poltical discussion on Twitter becauss of my illness, and so I only talk about it with my family.
I guess one thing that did give me a glimmer of hope recently, was seeing the success in Australia to ignore the Murdoch media and elect a non-Murdoch approved leader and government.
I'm replying here since my posts were moved here about the UK and yours are now in the Great Turning thread.
I am aware of some of the things happening in the US, especially Roe v Wade, as it is talked about everyday in the news and in here.
It is a rubbish situation globally for a lot of people - look at Ukraine, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Yemen, Syria, Palestine, and many African nations... I pray for them all everyday.
FYI the UK democratic system is failing on so many levels the whole way across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Votes do not count for anything as you believe they do - plenty of policies have been overturned, ignored, changed, corrupted and whilst women may have rights here for abortion and many other things, there is still many, many problems. It really is not black and white at all. There has been talks about overhauling the system to be more Proportional Representation like in Europe, but so far we have not seen enough commitment from the opposition parties.
There are a lot of myths and misconceptions about the UK poltical system. I have seen many people in America pointing to the UK system as some kind of shining beacon and saying that things are better over here, like with inflation, taxes, fuel costs, healthcare. This is simply not true. We are also not necessarily more democratic as a poltical system than you think.
I could elaborate further, but I don't have the energy to explain this.
Just know my American friends, that you are not alone in your struggles.
@luminous Thank you for taking the time (and energy) to explain the situation. I guess I am one of the people who thought the EU is more "democratic" than us because of our electoral college system.
Hopefully soon we will both have a better system.
No problem.
But the EU and the UK are two totally separate systems. The UK is not part of the European Union anymore since we left with Brexit.
Nations in the EU such as France, Germany, Spain, Portugal etc, have totally different poltical systems and many have proportional representation. We do not have proportional representation in the UK. Many regions in the UK feel that they have no voice, and that their vote means nothing and counts for nothing. I have voted nearly every single general election where I live for the opposition parties, but my consitituency (the parliamentary seat that elects a member of parliament) is a Conservative safe seat, which means no matter how I vote, it will always be a Conservative win. This is because of the way the zones were drawn up and parliamentary boundaries were set for my area and other regions. We are outnumbered by the populations of the surrounding towns who always vote conservative, so the other people can never get anywhere enough numbers to out vote them. I am simplifying it, but you get the idea. Proportional representation works very differently from this and is much fairer. Every vote counts and has a much fairer opportunity to make an impact.
@luminous Hi girl don’t despair change happens and hopefully it will improve over time.
Australia is using the Westminster System the same as Great Britain but we have preferential voting and have an Electoral Commission to set the boundaries (brought in after lots of gerrymandering) and to run the elections and keep the rolls etc and I guess the fact it’s compulsory to vote and we get about a 96% turnout are the main differences.
This is a little video on how the voting works
https://youtu.be/W1MsyKazjRA?list=TLGGrp7118IaaL4yMzA3MjAyMg
Regards to all
Thanks for your reassuring words.
I'm a guy by the way - but I know that my secret love for Natalie Imbruglia's songs in the 90s does probably make me question that sometimes. 🤣 🤣 🤣
Yeah we have an electoral commission too, but the boundaries have moved over the years and the gerrymandering has definitely worked in favour of the Conservatives in certain parts of the UK - especially where I live. We don't have compulsory voting though but I wish we did, since the Conservatives are trying to make it harder for people to vote - because they believe there is....wait for it.... voter fraud... But there really isn't.
Like Australia, we too have the Murdoch media machine going into overdrive 24/7 trying to keep people stupid and brainwashed. How can one man harm so many democracies and people for so long? But the difference in Australia is you managed to ignore it. If we did what Australia did, then we could defeat a big chunk of the right-wing media and its influence on power. People are slowly realising this, but we are not yet where Australia is - we still have far too many people who believe Boris and his cronies are trying to stop the 'deepstate' and 'woke culture'. They have no desire to really fix the things they broke in government. Nope. They are instead just fixated on a culture war and blaming immigrants, disabled people, and people who voted to remain in the brexit referendum. They love to gaslight and keep everyone angry and divided.
@luminous Whoops, sorry about that. I think we managed to change it because Scott Morrison was on the nose and our preferential voting system. Also the concerted effort of the Teal independents taking the conservative vote away from them. It’s quite a mixed bag now with Greens and Independents and the Teals as well as the two main parties. The Murdoch press are still trying very hard to paint this new government in a bad light. Some of it ludicrous.
Best wishes Mate
Regards to all
(just putting this post here so I do not derail the other topic too much about the UK.)
Look at this - these are the polls in the UK today:
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1575523247889829895?s=20&t=SmUPWzQG_2hokG1YHpCoFQ
Westminster Voting Intention: LAB: 54% (+9) CON: 21% (-7) LDM: 7% (-2) GRN: 6% (-1) RFM: 4% (+1) Via
, 28-29 Sep. Changes w/ 23-25 Sep. THIRTY THREE POINT LEAD.
33 point lead to Labour who are the opposition party over the Conservatives.
This is how it would translate on the electoral map in the UK (blue is Conservative and red is Labour):
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1575526882853810192?s=20&t=SmUPWzQG_2hokG1YHpCoFQ
This would put the Labour party as the highest point lead recorded in any published poll since the 1990s.
For those who are unfamiliar with our UK political parties in the UK: Labour are Centre-Left and the Conservatives are currently trying their best to emulate fascism.
The UK is crying out for an early general election. The official next date for one is in 2024, but if parliament calls a vote of no confidence in the government (with some of PM's own mps voting with the opposition parties against her) then an early general election is indeed possible before 2024. But this all depends on how many of her own MPs turn against her and vote with the other parties. As it currently stands, PM Liz Truss, has an extremely divided party and she is fast losing all respect from her colleagues - she also has no mandate from the British people for the policies she is pushing through - since she has torn up all the policies her party were elected on from the 2019 election.
Basically, the Conservatives have been in government for 12 years and they have ruined everything. They have no solutions, no answers, nothing. All that is left is an asset strip free-for-all to make as much money for themselves and their hedge fund backers before they go out. We want them out now before they do even more damage.