Are We Heading For A Recession Like In The 30s?

[ECCOnoob 1,040]

4 minutes ago, tinfoilhat said:

Yeah all that, but if you know some of them personally or even know somebody who knows them - you're in. Need to swerve some up-coming planning regs, want to head up a public health body despite a stream of failures - don't worry about it, you just need to go to the right dinner party.

That is true.  However, friends in high places is never going to go away.

 

Plus that level of sycophancy goes well beyond politics.    Plenty of those in the world who know the Doctor up at no 26 who you can tap to skip the GP queue or that company MD golf aquaintence who you can buy a few pints for to give little Jimmy a favourable job interview or that Solicitor friend at Football who you can tap for a bit of freebie advice or cheap conveyancing or that disenchanted Police Officer who might be playable for a nice few extra pounds. 

[Anna B 1,414]

23 hours ago, ECCOnoob said:

 

I know a couple of good people who were elected onto Sheffield City Council, both with a view to making a difference. 

Not a chance. Unless you were part of 'the club' you were stonewalled and sent to the equivalent of Siberia. They gave up in the end.

You don't make friends in high places by trying to change a system that serves those at the top well.

7 minutes ago, Anna B said:

I know a couple of good people who were elected onto Sheffield City Council, both with a view to making a difference. 

Not a chance. Unless you were part of 'the club' you were stonewalled and sent to the equivalent of Siberia. They gave up in the end.

You don't make friends in high places by trying to change a system that serves those at the top well.

Sorry, this response was to post 156 by Ecconoob.

Edited August 31, 2020 by Anna B

[Anna B 1,414]

51 minutes ago, ECCOnoob said:

I disagree.  They do listen.  Its just that they cannot hear for all the excess shouting. 

 

"The people" are dumb.  "The people"  are emotive and reactionary.  "The people" dont research, investigate and consider full context.  "The people" are selfish and dont consider wider implications. "The people" are fickle and dont even know what they want themselves....    That is why we have elected representatives.  Without such nothing could ever get done.   Blimey, the house with merely 650 of various supposed political alignments have shown numerous examples of failing to agree on things and parliamentary sessions descending into shouting fests - how the hell are "The people" in their billions supposed to agree on something.

 

I have said before that there are numerous ways that "The people" could choose to become engaged in their communities, local affairs and national politics.  However, significant numbers of those "people" wont because its dull and difficult to understand and time consuming and generally not as exciting as watching Love Island or reading about some shagging scandal in The Sun.  

 

Protest can and does work.   Petitioning can and does work.  But it has to have a succint and rational point.   Im not seeing that these days.  What I am seeing is lots of generic wide-scale shouting fests over nothing and everything.   A substantial number of which, in my opinion, are fuelled by nothing more than the losers of the last election desprately trying to find ways to shout out the democratically elected government from office.     

 

That is not succinct and rational.  That sort of protest is nothing more than a generic "...I dont like and its all their fault". 

 

Whether some of those "people" dont like and didnt vote for the current leaders is wholly irrelevant.   Its was an fair democratic election which followed exactly the same process as every other election before.  The majority went to the Tories just like the majority went to Labour in 1997 and no majority went to either in 2010  and 2017.  

 

Now, if they want to change the electoral system completely to make it fairer - that's absolutely fine.  Protest for that but make it that subject alone.   Instead we always seems to be get some some 1001 subject cornucopia street march filled with  the usual "rent a mob" followers waving around their sponsored placards.   No wonder the context gets completely drowned out.

 

If "the people" seriously want to have their say then far far more of them need to be prepared to put the effort in.  That goes well beyond clicking some online poll/petition and far more than just joining some nice walk around London on a sunny day.     People need to get smart and properly understand the decisions being made, the context and how it will affect not just them but the wider population BEFORE jumping in with some reaction. 

 

They need to start properly engaging in the politics they vote for.   Reading the paperwork which is duly published all over the parlimentary and local authority websites.   Attending the commitees either in person or virtually by activley seeking out the consultations when they are and/or watching the recordings of either commitees or parliamentry sessions which are freely available on both television and the web 24 hours a day.    That's how they will learn about the processes and maybe understand properly why things are done in a certain way and take a certain timescale BEFORE jumping to some reaction.

 

"The people" need to start properly engaging with their elected representatives.  They are free to contact, meet with and communicate with their offices on any issue including seeking any available freedom of information on the subjects they have concerns about.  That way they can obtain the full factual information BEFORE jumping to some reaction.  

 

That's how you get them to listen.  Everything else is white noise.

Even the Liberal Democrats didn't manage to change the system, even though they tried.

The popular PR (Proportional Representation) vote they proposed  was screwed by some clever Tory slight of hand, which turned it into a vote for AV which nobody wanted or understood.

Edited August 31, 2020 by Anna B

[tinfoilhat 11]

2 hours ago, ECCOnoob said:

That is true.  However, friends in high places is never going to go away.

 

Plus that level of sycophancy goes well beyond politics.    Plenty of those in the world who know the Doctor up at no 26 who you can tap to skip the GP queue or that company MD golf aquaintence who you can buy a few pints for to give little Jimmy a favourable job interview or that Solicitor friend at Football who you can tap for a bit of freebie advice or cheap conveyancing or that disenchanted Police Officer who might be playable for a nice few extra pounds. 

It's getting worse I think.

[Anna B 1,414]

8 minutes ago, tinfoilhat said:

It's getting worse I think.

Yes, I think so too. 

It starts at the top, and trickles down.

 

[andyofborg 11]

3 hours ago, Anna B said:

I know a couple of good people who were elected onto Sheffield City Council, both with a view to making a difference. 

Did they know what difference they actually wanted to make?

 

There are 84 councillors and with the best will in the world, a couple of people are not going to be able to make a difference. To actually make a difference you need a majority and probably a majority over several elections, to stand a chance of influences anything important you need at least 30. 

 

To build that sort of bloc takes time and commitment. It also needs people to think beyond "single issue" politics and offer a program which covers everything not just their pet project(s). 

 

[Anna B 1,414]

4 hours ago, andyofborg said:

Did they know what difference they actually wanted to make?

 

There are 84 councillors and with the best will in the world, a couple of people are not going to be able to make a difference. To actually make a difference you need a majority and probably a majority over several elections, to stand a chance of influences anything important you need at least 30. 

 

To build that sort of bloc takes time and commitment. It also needs people to think beyond "single issue" politics and offer a program which covers everything not just their pet project(s). 

 

That is part of the problem. The Labour party stronghold in Sheffield, formed over years, and within it the small minority in charge who call the shots, consider themselves invincible, unaccountable  and therefore a law unto themselves. It's a powerbase that's almost impossible to break down or break into.

Nobody else stands a chance. 

 

 

Edited August 31, 2020 by Anna B

[andyofborg 11]

12 hours ago, Anna B said:

That is part of the problem. The Labour party stronghold in Sheffield, formed over years, and within it the small minority in charge who call the shots, consider themselves invincible, unaccountable  and therefore a law unto themselves. It's a powerbase that's almost impossible to break down or break into.

Nobody else stands a chance. 

 

 

It's very possible, the lib dems did it, the greens are making progress but what it needs is people, organisation and a coherent strategy for managing the whole city which makes sense to most people. it also needs time and commitment, you are unlikely to gain influence or even power on the first attempt so you need to keep plugging at it. 

 

A handful of independents, especially single issue/protest independents are unlikely to have any sort of impact. 

 

A collective of independents might work, as long as they are all pragmatic enough to be able to work together and you exclude the loons, nutters and those representing the extreme edges hiding behind the petticoats of mainstream people. 

 

There are all sorts of neighbourhood boards, committees and groups, getting involved in those can help raise image and also start to give you experience of the decision making process and the hard and soft limits of council power.

 

 

 

[El Cid 218]

25 minutes ago, andyofborg said:

It's very possible, the lib dems did it, the greens are making progress but what it needs is people, organisation and a coherent strategy for managing the whole city which makes sense to most people. it also needs time and commitment, you are unlikely to gain influence or even power on the first attempt so you need to keep plugging at it. 

A handful of independents, especially single issue/protest independents are unlikely to have any sort of impact.

But it just takes too long, with first past the post. The Liberal Democrats are back down to 8% in national polling.

It will be really difficult to get back to a three party system. Even then, its an unfair system.

[apelike 10]

27 minutes ago, andyofborg said:

A collective of independents might work, as long as they are all pragmatic enough to be able to work together and you exclude the loons, nutters and those representing the extreme edges hiding behind the petticoats of mainstream people. 

I agree with that and have in the past also suggested that is how all local councils should be run instead of using  the outdated political way of management.

[Anna B 1,414]

11 hours ago, andyofborg said:

It's very possible, the lib dems did it, the greens are making progress but what it needs is people, organisation and a coherent strategy for managing the whole city which makes sense to most people. it also needs time and commitment, you are unlikely to gain influence or even power on the first attempt so you need to keep plugging at it. 

 

A handful of independents, especially single issue/protest independents are unlikely to have any sort of impact. 

 

A collective of independents might work, as long as they are all pragmatic enough to be able to work together and you exclude the loons, nutters and those representing the extreme edges hiding behind the petticoats of mainstream people. 

 

There are all sorts of neighbourhood boards, committees and groups, getting involved in those can help raise image and also start to give you experience of the decision making process and the hard and soft limits of council power.

 

 

 

A collective of Independents is a nice idea, (and I would dearly love that to be part of the Parliamentary system,) but I can't see it happening.

How many Independents are on the Council now? I looked for this information on SSC website, but couldn't find it, (nor a list of Councilors,) but that might just be me.

Did find the Consultation Hub though, which I thought was a good. I'll be keeping an eye on that.

Edited September 1, 2020 by Anna B

[El Cid 218]

34 minutes ago, Anna B said:

A collective of Independents is a nice idea, (and I would dearly love that to be part of the Parliamentary system,) but I can't see it happening.

How many Independents are on the Council now? I looked for this information on SSC website, but couldn't find it, (nor a list of Councilors,) but that might just be me.

Did find the Consultation Hub though, which I thought was a good. I'll be keeping an eye on that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheffield_City_Council_elections

 

Labour = 49, Liberal Democrats = 26, Greens = 8 and UKIP = 1

Zero = Conservative

Edited September 2, 2020 by El Cid