I got downvoted on Lemmy the other day because I said that I prefer Bill Gates to Musk.

Maybe there are things about Gates I don’t know. Maybe he is actually quite an evil person; I don’t know. But he does at least spend billions of dollars helping vulnerable people, right? And Bill’s stances on global politics are far more sensible than those of Musk.

The centrists were booted out, yes. Philip Hammond, Kenneth Clarke, David Gauke, Justine Greening, Dominic Grieve, Rory Stewart, etc.

Anyway, I assume that by the next election, due to First Past the Post, there will be two main groups again. One will probably be a Trump-lite, pro-Brexit faction (either Reform or the Tories, or a pact of both maybe). The other will be a more liberal, pro-Europe faction (either Labour or Lib Dems, or a pact of them with maybe the Greens).

I dunno, I’m a political novice to be honest, I’m just guessing.

Apparently experts don’t agree on whether Covid is still a pandemic. As that article says: “these days, a lot of people refer to the pandemic in the past tense”.

What do you mean by this

My guess is that Labour have done some polling, showing them what red wall voters want, and Labour want to appeal to those voters - voters who are tempted by Reform’s message.

But on this climate change issue, the article is saying that voters don’t even want anti-green policies. And I haven’t seen signs that Labour are tempted to copy Reform’s anti-green stance.

I think you’re right it would be “nonsense” if the press said that joining the customs union would be “undemocratic”. The referendum only asked whether the UK should leave the EU - people didn’t vote explicitly to leave the customs union or single market.

I think democracy does a pretty good job of surviving when you have free and fair elections, and proportional representation probably makes politics even more democratic. In European countries that have maintained free and fair elections, they generally haven’t plunged into populism. Macron defeated Le Pen twice, for example. AfD have obviously grown their base in Germany, but they haven’t entered government. Hungary is arguably ruled by a populist, but some people would say their politics aren’t really free and fair anymore. If their politics remained free and fair then populism might have less power.

I know Brits like to joke about the French but I like France. And they’re a pretty similar country to the UK from a geopolitical standpoint. Both countries have their own nukes, both are permanent members of the UN Security Council, and both have very similarly sized populations and economies (both have about 68 million people, while Germany has 83 million people).

So maybe France is a natural European ally for the UK. And of course France is right next to the UK.

Maybe we need a new special relationship…

They do those things to some degree, but those things remain banned for under 18s, which I suppose reduces harm, even if it doesn’t fully eliminate harm.

That attitude probably won’t win any political contests though… voters do not like being thought of as stupid. They want their concerns taken seriously. If we have a political system where we don’t listen to certain members of the public then that’s basically autocracy.

Pretending probably isn’t enough. If a political movement (such as a centrist or pro-Europe movement) wants to win then it has to take all voters seriously, surely. Or at least as many as possible.

I’m not blaming remainers or leavers or anyone. But if the political centre wants to beat populist causes like Brexit, Trump, or Reform UK, then the political centre needs to appeal to voters who are tempted to vote for populist causes. E.g. if Starmer wants to win another election, he will have to win the votes of some people who will be deciding whether to vote for Labour or for Reform UK.

As for Brexit being democracy or not, I think it was an expression of democratic will. But I think it would have been democratically valid to have a second referendum asking what kind of Brexit people wanted, because the first referendum did not make that clear. Britain could have stayed in the EU single market while still leaving the EU itself for example (Norway and Switzerland both take part in the single market, but they’re not in the EU).

Also another thing that could improve democracy in the UK would be proportional representation. In the 2017 UK general election, the right-wing parties (Tories + DUP) only got about 43% of the vote between them. Meanwhile, Labour + Lib Dem + SNP + Green got about 52% of the vote between them. So there could have been a centre-left majority, under proportional representation. This could have resulted in the UK staying in the EU single market at least.

I get your frustration… and maybe some voters have been just genuinely mistaken. But calling voters dumb just pushes them away and makes them more likely to vote for some alternative. Their reaction is “you think I’m dumb? Then fuck you, I’m not going to vote for what you want”.

If the political centre wants to beat populist causes like Brexit and Reform UK then the centre needs to try to include everyone - even those tempted by Reform. I guess that’s what I’m trying to say.

Maybe. But in a democracy the voters choose what they want, whether you like their choice or not.

Maybe the political centre needed to do a better job of serving the people who ultimately voted for Brexit and Trump. Those people felt that politicians didn’t care about them at all.

I feel a bit bad for her because I think she takes the whole thing very personally, which is probably why she has become so defensive.

I wonder if she ever will say “okay sorry guys, maybe I made some mistakes”. If she did then maybe people would mock her less. People are a bit relentless in mocking her these days.

Very true that free speech never really means that

I read this BBC article about it

Obviously if this turns out to be life that would be interesting, but it could turn out to be nothing.

If it turns out to be some moss or bacteria or other basic life, that would be pretty cool. If it’s humanoid aliens then maybe we’re screwed.

It better not be imported cheese. That would be a disgrace.