Wiped away, never to come back?

ugo.santalucia

Political hot topics that won't make a comeback any time soon... in ranking order, I start:

1) Third runway at Heathrow
2) Indyref2
3) Australian points based immigration system

pblakeney

I would have added HS2. Which shows how little I know.
Totally unpredictable given that is progressing.

First.Aspect

Indyref2 won't go away. It is the SNPs reason for being. Don't let the fact that, again, they would be totally censored as an independent nation just now bother you. Independence = good, because it just is.

rick_chasey

I would anticipate anti immigrant rhetoric to soar in the next few years. Unemployment is gonna rocket.

ugo.santalucia

We live close to the works for HS2 and yes, they are going ahead...

It is unclear whether the capacity will be needed in the short run, but this thing won't be finished until 2030 or so and by then Coronavirus will be a distant memory... but still to be seen how many people will be working from home then... the days of train commutes might well be on the out

rick_chasey

How about sensible centrist governance?

More likely to disappear than quasi-fascist politics.

ugo.santalucia

You are such a bitter bunch...

Pross

rick_chasey said:

How about sensible centrist governance?

More likely to disappear than quasi-fascist politics.

That went a few years ago didn't it?

coopster_the_1st

ugo.santalucia said:

Political hot topics that won't make a comeback any time soon... in ranking order, I start:

1) Third runway at Heathrow
2) Indyref2
3) Australian points based immigration system

You need to take your blinkers off if you cannot see that is massively wrong. NS is positioning herself with the way she is releasing UK government messages ahead of the UK government doing so.

Agree on 1.

No 3 is in the backburner as their is something else bigger happening.

rick_chasey

Pross said:

rick_chasey said:

How about sensible centrist governance?

More likely to disappear than quasi-fascist politics.

That went a few years ago didn't it?

Quite likely to get worse.

ugo.santalucia

Pretty sure Scots won't be in any rush to vote for independence at a time when they will need a lot of help to fix the economy... so NS won't be in any rush to lose another referendum... the momentum behind Indyref2 is all but gone

morstar

rick_chasey said:

Pross said:

rick_chasey said:

How about sensible centrist governance?

More likely to disappear than quasi-fascist politics.

That went a few years ago didn't it?

Quite likely to get worse.

I’m not sure your Spanish Flu extrapolation applies.
We went into the last election with a Brexit is all that matters Tory party and a hard left Labour Party.
Labour is shifting more centrist and love it or hate it, we will be post Brexit trade fallout and will have a new norm.
The tories will be judged on that new norm. Not sure what will drive them massively to the right other than to a small minority who think that any Brexit downsides are because it wasn’t hard enough.

rick_chasey

morstar said:

rick_chasey said:

Pross said:

rick_chasey said:

How about sensible centrist governance?

More likely to disappear than quasi-fascist politics.

That went a few years ago didn't it?

Quite likely to get worse.

I’m not sure your Spanish Flu extrapolation applies.
We went into the last election with a Brexit is all that matters Tory party and a hard left Labour Party.
Labour is shifting more centrist and love it or hate it, we will be post Brexit trade fallout and will have a new norm.
The tories will be judged on that new norm. Not sure what will drive them massively to the right other than to a small minority who think that any Brexit downsides are because it wasn’t hard enough.

What was the driver of extremist politics across Europe during the 1930s?

morstar

rick_chasey said:

morstar said:

rick_chasey said:

Pross said:

rick_chasey said:

How about sensible centrist governance?

More likely to disappear than quasi-fascist politics.

That went a few years ago didn't it?

Quite likely to get worse.

I’m not sure your Spanish Flu extrapolation applies.
We went into the last election with a Brexit is all that matters Tory party and a hard left Labour Party.
Labour is shifting more centrist and love it or hate it, we will be post Brexit trade fallout and will have a new norm.
The tories will be judged on that new norm. Not sure what will drive them massively to the right other than to a small minority who think that any Brexit downsides are because it wasn’t hard enough.

What was the driver of extremist politics across Europe during the 1930s?

You know more about history than I do. But poverty in this day and age is not what it was back then. Also, Germany had a very specific set of circumstances following WWI that galvanised support behind Hitler and his up yours approach to Versaille.

It is important to learn from history but to take one specific event from a completely different era and context and assume the same outcomes will happen seems a really odd position to take.

rjsterry

rick_chasey said:

morstar said:

rick_chasey said:

Pross said:

rick_chasey said:

How about sensible centrist governance?

More likely to disappear than quasi-fascist politics.

That went a few years ago didn't it?

Quite likely to get worse.

I’m not sure your Spanish Flu extrapolation applies.
We went into the last election with a Brexit is all that matters Tory party and a hard left Labour Party.
Labour is shifting more centrist and love it or hate it, we will be post Brexit trade fallout and will have a new norm.
The tories will be judged on that new norm. Not sure what will drive them massively to the right other than to a small minority who think that any Brexit downsides are because it wasn’t hard enough.

What was the driver of extremist politics across Europe during the 1930s?

Most disasters don't have a single cause; it is the accumulation of relatively small impacts.

DeVlaeminck

Tend to agree with Rick that extremism is at least more likely if there is a recession. I have a vague recollection of some political science/sociological theory around unrest/extremism not being driven by absolute deprivation but by the gap between what people expect and what they get - expectation vs reality.

morstar

Ricks comment was the expected loss of sensible centrist government.
That has already departed. If anything from a UK perspective, we are more likely to move more centrist. We currently have no opposition as what was on offer was too extreme to even make a robust opposition. Tory success was a result of rejection of staunch socialism. There isn't a clamouring for further right, the void is in the centre.
I accept that is a very UK perspective. We're a moderate bunch.

ugo.santalucia

I predict a bit of Chinophobia, but not necessarily xenophobia... remember we have all been in this together... and a lot of the NHS staff come from abroad.
Trump will blow the "Blame China" horn and it will resonate quite loud... to be honest I am fed up with China too... it's what, the third pandemic in less than 20 years that originates in a wet market in China? Is it not time the fuxxers give up on their shark fins, rhino horns and pangolins?
Do we really have to bring back manufacturing in Europe to show them that it's time they change their tune?

Back to the topic... Trident nuclear deterrent? I can see a future where defence will be re-interpreted as the ability to respond quickly to an outbreak, rather than the ability to deploy an aircraft carrier

rick_chasey

morstar said:

Ricks comment was the expected loss of sensible centrist government.
That has already departed. If anything from a UK perspective, we are more likely to move more centrist. We currently have no opposition as what was on offer was too extreme to even make a robust opposition. Tory success was a result of rejection of staunch socialism. There isn't a clamouring for further right, the void is in the centre.
I accept that is a very UK perspective. We're a moderate bunch.

I hope you're right but I wouldn't hold your breathe.

There's a pause because we're all in lockdown, but as soon as the virus is on its way out and we're looking at an economic catastrophe, I don't see many people reaching for moderate politics.

rick_chasey

Things that will be wiped away never to come back; the US's primacy as the only global superpower.

surrey_commuter

morstar said:

Ricks comment was the expected loss of sensible centrist government.
That has already departed. If anything from a UK perspective, we are more likely to move more centrist. We currently have no opposition as what was on offer was too extreme to even make a robust opposition. Tory success was a result of rejection of staunch socialism. There isn't a clamouring for further right, the void is in the centre.
I accept that is a very UK perspective. We're a moderate bunch.

i think many people are just looking at the label and assuming that is what is in the tin, in many ways Boris is to the left of Blair.

monty_dogcp

The people in Scotland like nothing better than being told by the English about independence. Particularly when they've pursued their own "self-determination" agenda for a number of years, but reject the notion that it would be of benefit to anyone else.

mrfpb

I predict a return of Full Employment (as a goal of government) to the political agenda.

ugo.santalucia

mrfpb said:

I predict a return of Full Employment (as a goal of government) to the political agenda.

200,000 track & tracers by 2021?

coopster_the_1st

ugo.santalucia said:

3) Australian points based immigration system

Just thought about this.

With UK unemployment being so high the public will want fewer jobs going to immigrants until the UK is back to previously normal employment levels.

morstar

surrey_commuter said:

morstar said:

Ricks comment was the expected loss of sensible centrist government.
That has already departed. If anything from a UK perspective, we are more likely to move more centrist. We currently have no opposition as what was on offer was too extreme to even make a robust opposition. Tory success was a result of rejection of staunch socialism. There isn't a clamouring for further right, the void is in the centre.
I accept that is a very UK perspective. We're a moderate bunch.

i think many people are just looking at the label and assuming that is what is in the tin, in many ways Boris is to the left of Blair.

With regard to immigration, our current government is very much to the right.
I think xenophobic right wing policies is Ricks primary worry rather than fiscal.

rick_chasey

morstar said:

surrey_commuter said:

morstar said:

Ricks comment was the expected loss of sensible centrist government.
That has already departed. If anything from a UK perspective, we are more likely to move more centrist. We currently have no opposition as what was on offer was too extreme to even make a robust opposition. Tory success was a result of rejection of staunch socialism. There isn't a clamouring for further right, the void is in the centre.
I accept that is a very UK perspective. We're a moderate bunch.

i think many people are just looking at the label and assuming that is what is in the tin, in many ways Boris is to the left of Blair.

With regard to immigration, our current government is very much to the right.
I think xenophobic right wing policies is Ricks primary worry rather than fiscal.

left wing is just as big a problem.

Stevo_666

How about Rick's reputation for balanced debating?

morstar

rick_chasey said:

morstar said:

surrey_commuter said:

morstar said:

Ricks comment was the expected loss of sensible centrist government.
That has already departed. If anything from a UK perspective, we are more likely to move more centrist. We currently have no opposition as what was on offer was too extreme to even make a robust opposition. Tory success was a result of rejection of staunch socialism. There isn't a clamouring for further right, the void is in the centre.
I accept that is a very UK perspective. We're a moderate bunch.

i think many people are just looking at the label and assuming that is what is in the tin, in many ways Boris is to the left of Blair.

With regard to immigration, our current government is very much to the right.
I think xenophobic right wing policies is Ricks primary worry rather than fiscal.

left wing is just as big a problem.

Again, from a UK specific perspective, do you really think this is a risk. It was resoundingly rejected in December.

rick_chasey

morstar said:

rick_chasey said:

morstar said:

surrey_commuter said:

morstar said:

Ricks comment was the expected loss of sensible centrist government.
That has already departed. If anything from a UK perspective, we are more likely to move more centrist. We currently have no opposition as what was on offer was too extreme to even make a robust opposition. Tory success was a result of rejection of staunch socialism. There isn't a clamouring for further right, the void is in the centre.
I accept that is a very UK perspective. We're a moderate bunch.

i think many people are just looking at the label and assuming that is what is in the tin, in many ways Boris is to the left of Blair.

With regard to immigration, our current government is very much to the right.
I think xenophobic right wing policies is Ricks primary worry rather than fiscal.

left wing is just as big a problem.

Again, from a UK specific perspective, do you really think this is a risk. It was resoundingly rejected in December.

As a general rule, when times are really quite rough for people, they tend to seek increasingly extreme measures to fix what are increasingly extreme problems.

If you tend towards the left you will head to that end of the extreme spectrum and the equivalent if you tend to the right.

I see it this way: if just the stagnation of people's earnings over the last decade has already polarised the UK debate (and i still firmly believe Brexit became a proxy for a heavily polarised culture war), then imagine what a f*cking monster recession is going to do.

Couple that with a wider anti-globalisation movement, a push towards autarky (as a natural response to how the virus spread so quickly and how movement between nations threatened global supply chains) and it's not hard to see where it ends up.

I would love to be wrong on this. If I had to put causes of WW2 in order of priority, I'd put the depression really bloody high, so that's where I'm coming at on this.

rick_chasey

Also, if you want to be really bleak, arguably the unprecedented catastrophe that ww2 was (the world had and has never seen anything so destructive on such a large scale) has put off big important nations waging war against other big important nations for the last 80 years, but now the the people who actually remember going through that are more or less all dead, so that memory will fade and fade.

But that is on balance probably too bleak, and forgets the role of nuclear deterrents.