UK Politics VI - Will Britain Steir to Karmer Waters?

[Nick723]

You really think providing material support to genocidaires is "impressive"??

I don’t think the UK has done or is providing Material Support to Israel, other than in the immediate aftermath of the Oct 23 attacks.

UK arms exports to Israel are very low, and furthermore the government has restricted some licenses:

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9964/

Keir Starmer has been supportive of the ceasefire, peace, and a proponent of a two state solution.

PM statement on the Israel-Hamas ceasefire: 15 January 2025

Prime Minister Keir Starmer's statement on the Israel-Hamas ceasefire.

www.gov.uk

Palestinians must be allowed home to Gaza, Keir Starmer - BBC News

The PM responds to President Trump's plan to turn Gaza into the "Riviera of the Middle East".

www.bbc.co.uk

UK’s Starmer ‘deeply concerned’ about fresh Israeli strikes on Gaza

Prime minister says images from Gaza are “truly shocking” and calls for ceasefire agreement to be implemented in full.

www.politico.eu

 

[Cloud_Strife]

None of that changes the fact that the uk is still arming Israel as it commits an active genocide

 

[Nick723]

I’m happy to be corrected, but I think to be more specific it would be ‘arms exporters based in the UK’ rather than ‘the UK’. Unlike with Ukraine, it is not the UK government arming Israel, there is just not a (full) restriction on arms exports by private companies.

I would be in favour of a full restriction, but I can see the government’s position and given the size of the exports it would be a largely symbolic gesture.

 

[Lexicus]

More concerning probably than the arms exports are the continuous reconaissance flights over Gaza from the RAF base in Cyprus, but not everyone knows about those

 

[Ordnael]

I would expect that without reconnaissance flights civilian death toll would much worse. kudos for UK!

 

[Arwon]

Wake me up when your oh-so-great ranked preferential system and the hassle of needing to actually rank every candidate manage to get you to a point of multi-party representation worth talking about.

Because right now, the best your ranked preferential can produce in party diversity is a whole (GASP) 10% of seats for all third parties together. Canada and it's eeeeevil FPTP system, meanwhile, has had five distinct parties form the official opposition in my lifetime, and considers 10% to be an abysymal sign of two-party grips.

I endorse multi member STV for this very reason, as we have in two thirds of the elections I vote in, ie Australian Capital Territory elections and in the federal Senate (the senate being a co-equal, proportionally elected multi party chamber in Australia which, thankfully, serves as a huge check on the majoritarian lower house).

Ranked choice single member districts are of course still infinitely better than FPTP simply due to not being directly anti-democratic in forcing the tactical voting dilemma and "which party will be top here" guessing game onto many/most voters. But they're still a single member district system and thus fundamentally very unrepresentative.

But then, the electoral regulatory and administrative system is distinct from the electoral method itself, and both are distinct from the political content.

Australia is rather funny for having an extremely well-run electoral administration built to maximise turnout and flexibility for voters, but it's primarily there for enacting a barely mediocre lower house electoral method. And both the administration and the electoral method are merely in service of two terrible parties that absolutely don't deserve any of it.

 

[EnglishEdward]

I think I will give the debate on electoral systems a pass.

I notice lack of discussion on whether a hollow brick for nesting swifts is a good thing or not,
just desperate attempts to argue that having a nest of birds in your wall won't increase noise.

 

[Arakhor]

"Desperate"? Can you say anything without being demeaning?

But are any of us ornithologists? I know nothing about swifts, nesting or otherwise, so if anyone does, feel free to speak up.

 

[Arwon]

I didn't know England still had wild birds these days after two hundred years of industry. The more you learn!

 

[Arakhor]

We haven't actually paved over the entire island, you know.

 

[Arwon]

Well not with that attitude

 

[PhroX]

Actually, most of England's nature was destroyed in pre-industrial times. The country was almost entirely deforested by the end of the medieval era and pretty much everything outside of urban areas is every bit as artificial as they are....

 

[Arakhor]

We're down to about 7% tree coverage (probably mostly in Scotland), we don't have nearly enough hedgerows and the RSPB could do with a lot more funding, but we do still have plenty of native birds. The current edition of the RSPB magazine was even talking about how the white-tailed eagle was successfully reintroduced to parts of England.

 

[Mega Tsunami]

I don’t know if House Martins are any relation to Swifts but we sometimes have them nesting n the eaves of the house - and you have to be ready to clear up the unholy poo mess they produce beneath it.
Don’t park your car anywhere near the nest.
You can attach Swift boxes to the outside of your house but be sure to put a board just underneath it to collect all the poo.

As regards voter registration this happens to be in today’s Telegraph on the matter. And it’s all very complicated.

It includes this:

Our electoral franchise is a mess. You might think you have to be a British citizen to vote in British elections.

Not a bit of it. Millions can do so. Aussies and Canadians. Nearly half of Africa. All Indians and Pakistanis. In fact, getting on for a third of the entire world’s population can vote here if they can get here.

Most of this is a legacy of the British Empire and our sentimentality about the Commonwealth. Any citizen of a Commonwealth country can vote if they are living, working, or studying here. That’s 2.7 billion people. The reverse is very rarely true. Indians coming here to work under our new free trade deal with India get to vote straight away. Brits going to India certainly do not.
…
Irish citizens not only get to vote in all British elections. Irish citizens can come here without restriction, work here, live here, and be educated here, including paying UK-level fees at universities.

Even other EU citizens get a pretty good deal. The 6 million Europeans here before the end of 2020, if they stayed, all get to vote in local elections. The Scots and Welsh have gone even further and say that any resident foreigner, whatever nationality and whenever they arrive, can vote in not just the locals but elections to the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments.

And millions of Europeans could be on the register for everything but national elections. The local election register is 2.4 million bigger than the parliamentary one, which suggests many already are.

Only British citizens deserve the right to vote

Our democracy is not just an entitlement but a privilege. It is for those committed to our nation

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[Senethro]

I think I will give the debate on electoral systems a pass.

I notice lack of discussion on whether a hollow brick for nesting swifts is a good thing or not,
just desperate attempts to argue that having a nest of birds in your wall won't increase noise.

It's good if you think habitat mitigation is good, which almost certainly will come from the values you hold already, and are unlikely to change from discussion.

 

[EnglishEdward]

I prioritise food and house production over maximising the diversity of wild life in the UK.

Nevertheless I am in favour of it, but I think the hollow bricks should come with a pre-fitted plastic bung.

That way the inhabitants of the house or flats can separately decide whether to remove
the pre-fitted bung and let wild birds nest there or not.

When I was young I read a book about how they put a wheel on the roof of a school in the
Netherlands to encourage swallows to nest there.

 

[Arakhor]

The whole point of the (proposed) law is to provide statutory nesting places for birds. Your proposal would not only entirely disarm that law, but also add to the proliferation of single-use plastic.

 

[Samson]

I prioritise food and house production over maximising the diversity of wild life in the UK.

Nevertheless I am in favour of it, but I think the hollow bricks should come with a pre-fitted plastic bung.

That way the inhabitants of the house or flats can separately decide whether to remove
the pre-fitted bung and let wild birds nest there or not.

When I was young I read a book about how they put a wheel on the roof of a school in the
Netherlands to encourage swallows to nest there.

I had a google, this is what they look like inside, I do not think noise will be a problem.

This is what they look like outside. If you add any user serviceable parts I think you will put people at greater risk than the swifts.

 

[Senethro]

I prioritise food and house production over maximising the diversity of wild life in the UK.

Nevertheless I am in favour of it, but I think the hollow bricks should come with a pre-fitted plastic bung.

That way the inhabitants of the house or flats can separately decide whether to remove
the pre-fitted bung and let wild birds nest there or not.

When I was young I read a book about how they put a wheel on the roof of a school in the
Netherlands to encourage swallows to nest there.

So are you asking if it is effective at its stated aim, or if its whole category of activities is worth pursuing?

 

[Snowygerry]

(...)

When I was young I read a book about how they put a wheel on the roof of a school in the
Netherlands to encourage swallows to nest there.

That's for storks I think ?

The Wheel on the School

The Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong 1954 Illustrated by Maurice Sendak When Lina, a young schoolgirl in a tiny Dutch fishing village, wonders why the storks no longer nest in Shora, she and …

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