Ah. If a politician promised to follow the science, I would remain sceptical until she demonstrated it, but at least relieved they were not promising to ignore the science. Again, even in the most pessimistic situation, there are better and worse outcomes. — Kenosha Kid

A scientific issue that creates political discussion usually means that the topic has a) opposing economic interests at hand or b) some moral issue linked with it that has made a lobby / pressure group to act. Usually politicians don't rock the boat because science. What they are interested is in voters.

The fact is that a majority of issues hardly appear in the media if both the administration and the opposition have nothing against it (and no powerful lobbies create discord), things go through without even notable interest from the news media. And this does happen.

A telling example is ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) project started by both US and USSR and other nations in 1985 and now has as member states China, the European Union, India, Japan, the Russian Federation, South Korea, and the United States as members of the project (Australia and Kazakhstan as additional members) working together. The project has cost about 20 billion dollars. To put this into context, the International Space Station has cost over 50 billion dollars and the space shuttle program with it's five shuttles and 134 flights (and two failures) cost a bit over 200 billion dollars. Yet that the US, Russia and China are working together isn't well known... perhaps for the best, that Trump isn't aware of it.

(Reagan and Gorbachev decided in 1985 in Reykjavik "emphasized the potential importance of the work aimed at utilizing controlled thermonuclear fusion for peaceful purposes and, in this connection, advocated the widest practicable development of international cooperation in obtaining this source of energy, which is essentially inexhaustible, for the benefit of all mankind.")


(And now in this Milennium, the experimental fusion reactor taking shape in France.)

That's nice to hear. :smile:

I hope I'm reading you incorrectly, and you're not saying we should not discuss climate change on grounds that politicians cannot discuss it well. — Kenosha Kid

I'd take that grain of salt when a matter comes to be the focus of politicians. Only that.

But of course, politicians are there to solve the moral dilemmas of policies...a judge cannot simply read the law book and make his or her verdict.

Environmental concern is overwhelmingly backed by science, that is, the scientific consensus is overwhelmingly in favour of climate action. — Kenosha Kid

Climate science and economic policy recommendations are still a bit different from each other.

I lost all hope after following the debate on nuclear energy in Europe decades ago. Something where energy policy and environmental policy cross ought to be topic where facts should be the real factor, but no. Even then, both sides had totally different facts to show, which were totally opposite to each other. The simple fact is that when anything reaches such political controversy and becomes a hot potato, facts at some level fade to the background and political attacks and accusations take over the discussion.

Best to discuss issues where politicians haven't taken the center stage. Then solutions based on facts can be found.

Isn't there a set of European values emerging as well — Olivier5

A very good question. I have to admit, not in anyway close as Americans values are dear to Americans. Far too easily someone defines "European values" in a way that the gets a lot of Europeans don't agree with the definition.

You could interpret Brexit as a failure of the Brits to reassess their nationalistic historiography, a failure to realise that their British identity was made up, created politically, and that it is to a degree based on fake nationalistic history and xenophobia. — Olivier5

Umm, it isn't fake as identities aren't fake. Every identity is made up. If people have come up with ideas that unite them, don't think that it makes them fake. And belief of there existing nations is a far more older idea than the 19th Century, where nation-states, something bit different, came to be the new vogue.

The UK has seen itself detached from Europe for a very long time as there obviously is the English Channel to start with. And this separation from the "Continental Europe" isn't so different from what other European nations think about their relation to "Europe".

I guess only France and the Benelux countries see themselves as being in the heart of Europe. Nordic countries see themselves as North European and use often the term Central Europe. Spain and Portugal or Greece see them quite far from Brussels too. Eastern European countries that were behind the Iron Curtain see themselves being different from Western Europe. Russians see themselves quite differently and many see Russians also in this way. Then there is the question just how European is Turkey or Georgia or Armenia?

That covid isn't the killer virus that everyone had expected is painfully clear here, and the only ones still maintaining that it is, are in the sitting government who is being torn to shreds by the opposition for it. Meanwhile, the population has been in a state of lockdown for half a year, and legislation is being passed which gives the government power over people's private lives which is simply unconstitutional. — Tzeentch

This doesn't make any sense as this is a global event with a global response to it. This isn't a Dutch issue only, it's a global issue.

You have totally different political situations in different countries, hence to assume a single political narrative is absurd. For example, in my country the opposition isn't taring to shreds the administration on the Covid-19 response BECAUSE THEY THEMSELVES DEMANDED tough lock-down measures to be implemented and the young women in charge of our leftist administration did do exactly that. At least opposition politicians here are consistent enough that they are fine if the administration accepts their demands and hence they are not against their own demands later.

You know Tzeentch, it's one thing to say that corona-virus is a non-issue seven months ago especially when the WHO hadn't declared a global pandemic. Yes, there have been earlier numerous epidemic breakouts that the news media have followed which luckily have ended with only a few deaths. Yes, the media usually makes everything a more bigger threat than they are in reality to get people to follow the news. However, to assume now that Covid-19 isn't a killer is simply false. If someone said it would kill tens of millions and this didn't happen (because of the huge response), that surely doesn't make it to be a hoax of some sort.

And as pointed out, this is still underway.

That's just because they killed Jesus. And they deserved every bloodcurdling scream that happened as a result of it damn it. But let's hope they learned their lesson and know better this time around. — Outlander

?

Sorry, totally clueless what you are implying. Are you talking about the Romans here or whom?

It is going to be very interesting to watch what happens when flu season really pops off in the next few months. — Merkwurdichliebe

At least officials here are now saying that this time now is the critical for the second wave. The majority of those few new cases reported here do not know where they have gotten the virus. And just to note, they didn't say the same thing in the summer.

The good thing now is that they are somewhat ready to handle a new wave: it's not anymore a mystery disease, there are ample amounts of facemasks to be bought and people likely aren't going to panic and hoard toilet paper. Basically the societies are adapting to a "new normal" of pandemic.

Look at the Islamic world, perpetually divided into hostile nations and only rarely having some imperial unification initiative, which is always an temporary and unsuccessful undertaking. — bcccampello

This is severe misreading of Muslim history that simply shows deep ignorance. Start from the kingdom that Mohammed himself created and follow the story onwards from there of the rapid expansion. In Islam, state and religion go truly hand in hand starting from this fact and is an important thing to understand.

And I guess the Vietnamese would have something to say about your idea that China "accommodated within its borders for millennia, only falling into imperialist temptation when contaminated with Western ideas". And obviously the history of the Mongols and their attitude towards other nations and parts of the World isn't either a thing you know well or simply dismiss. And just how normal were those Chinese borders in the first place?

Actually, the view you promote of just focusing on European imperialism and declaring nothing there to be similar in other continents leads simply to the typical anti-Americanism / anti-Europeanism, which in itself leads to a total lack of objectively looking at the history of other continents, starting from the fact that they have their own histories (even totally without the Europeans or European involvement). These states and nations should be look at objectively and critically in the same way as European ones.

Otherwise it's simply condescending and could even be interpreted as having racist undertones (with saying that Muslim nations "only rarely having some imperial unification initiative, which is always an temporary and unsuccessful undertaking"), but guess that's all right in the woke times we live in.

The Americans get this feeling. — Olivier5

Yet Americans have an ace in their pocket at this: anybody can become an American.

The ideology on what the country was founded upon is extremely important to Americans even to this day, and is one of the cornerstones of their nation. Only the Native Americans tribes could truly go with the normal way of looking at a country (by the land that has been inhabited for ages by the same people that share a language and culture). The US has had to replace this kind of "nativism" with the "Founding Fathers", the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as being what the country is about. And thanks to the global dominance of English, the same language has been easily taken by the newcomers and an American culture is quite dominant too.

And that makes a Michael Moore and an Trump supporter finding Americans values to their liking, even if they are quite opposed in nearly everything.

(Netherlands) covid has been put on the same level as the somewhat severe influenza epidemic of last year by the statistics of the National Institute of Public Health itself, — Tzeentch

By this logic, I wonder where the South Koreans put the pandemic with their little death toll of 420 deaths from covid-19 in a country of 51 million population. If the Netherlands would have been as "successful" as the US, you would have now over 10 000 dead from the pandemic and not just over 6 000. Where would that put the statistics?

As said just above, If the ordinary seasonal flu kills half a million or so in the World annually and we are already at over one million deaths with covid, could we stop using the "it's as bad as the seasonal flu" argument?

Anyway, done taking out the trash now. — Baden

One expects the person who wrote the forum guidelines to be consistent with them.

I've never been a supporter of Trump, yet what I think feeds the support for Trump is the condescending and hostile attitude toward his supporters. Or now I guess it's also those that don't attack him viciously. In the larger picture the hostility just increases the polarization, which just plays out to those in power. Better have the voters deeply divided and hating each other for the status quo to limp on: cannot have the opposition uniting! And you are sure your supporters will be on your side, as they hate the other side so much.

Yes, Trump is a very incompetent president and his actions (or rather inactions) has made it worst, but I wouldn't assume all deaths in this pandemic to him. If the US would have been as successful as Canada in the fight against the pandemic, about 83 000 Americans would have now died. Which just leaves 130 000 or so to the administration response. But if you couldn't use the Obama or Bush playbooks what to do at a time when a pandemic hits, then you couldn't.

Please remain humble for none of us are immune — ArguingWAristotleTiff

When people feel morally right and think others are totally wrong, nearly evil, why be humble?

Anyway, I think that your country will survive this just fine just as Arizona will do also. I said to my children that remember this time as when you are older, so you can tell about how it was as a child during the 2020 corona-pandemic. Those stories may get younger people listening, but who knows.

It is quite true that Rome has been seen as this historical example what European powers have wanted to be the successors of Rome, but let's not forget that Mehmed II claimed the title of Ceasar of the Romen Empire after conquering Constantinople in 1453.

So you could make the argument also:

"The history of the entire East is marked by the idea of ​​an Empire and successive attempts to create it."

Because you can see the similar history of empire building in Asia, which isn't so inherently different at it's root. The only difference is simply that the West was later so successful in especially the 19th Century. But then a mere recon attack from the Mongols nearly conquered Europe and the Mongol Horde still levels in it's conquests and it's brutality to the Western empires. So with China, the Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates, the Ottoman Empire, the Mongol Horde, the Timurid Empire, the Mughal Empire or the Japanese Empire etc. the thought of empire is obviously not confined to Europe, even if Rome has a special place for (West) Europeans.

Teflon Don won't be affected by this one way or another. Politically speaking. The lines in the sand in the US have been drawn a while ago. — Benkei

His supporters support him and his haters hate him, not much changes from what Trump does.

But of course what is obvious is that he wouldn't have been gone to hospital if it wouldn't be serious. A mild cough you rest at your home. And the Trump White House, as usual, doesn't keep any secrets so, from the mixed statements tell something.

According to "fake-news" CNN:

"The President's vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. We are still not on a clear path to a full recovery," the source told White House pool reporters after the briefing from his doctors.

Moments earlier on Saturday morning, the President's physician, Navy Cmdr. Dr. Sean Conley, had offered an upbeat assessment of the President's condition stating that he was feeling well, that he had been "fever-free" for 24 hours and that his symptoms -- which included an "extremely mild cough," nasal congestion and fatigue -- "are resolving and improving." Conley was evasive about when and if Trump had received supplemental oxygen, saying, "He is not on oxygen."

But a source close to the White House said Trump has received supplemental oxygen since his illness began. Trump "definitely has had oxygen," the source said, adding that it was on Friday.

What exactly would the consequences be if that happened? Let's try to do the calculus. — magritte

As millions have already voted, likely the election would result in the tragicomedy and a full shit show.

Likely the Republicans would argue to change their dead candidate with the vice president (then the acting president). It would be really difficult to pick any other than Pence. Only if Pence would resist being the President, which is unlikely for a Vice President.

And Biden winning a dead candidate? Sounds like a matter that many Republicans would not forget.

Meanwhile only people with symptoms are tested in the UK. — Punshhh

It's the same here too, but then again the symptoms are flu symptoms. Cough, sneezing, fever, etc. This makes basically having any old flu a reason for one to take a corona test and quarantine oneself for the time and hence a lot of people are tested.

As it's flu season now, taking a corona test is very typical and ordinary. Few weeks ago my son complained about a sore throat in school and he was immediately sent out from school and taken into a corona test, which came back in two days negative. Only after no flu symptoms did he go back to school. Not a rare thing to happen in families with smaller children, and you have countless examples of people going to self quarantine until the test comes back negative.

I think at least one Republican senator has learned his lesson, I guess.

Yet still blows my mind that people act in this way. Heck, I haven't shaken hands or hugged anybody (except my family members) since the state of emergency was declared back in the spring, even if I attended a funeral of a very close friend. But perhaps it's easy for Finns to stay away.

White House SCOTUS announcement is suspected as Covid super-spreader event as video shows infected senator hugging attendees — Michael

Pretty incredible. Only the military officers have systematically masks while I count about three other people wearing masks. And lots of hugs and handshakes. Well, if that's the attitude towards a pandemic...

With sovereign states court decisions are a minor issue, what the real issue is how other sovereign countries respond in things like trade policy etc.

Good example is to compare present Israel to Apartheid era South Africa. Once for US the Apartheid system came to be a more important factor than having a Western ally in the African continent, things changed dramatically. For the white ruling class it was more sound to do away with apartheid than face the sanctions. Yet some international court or even the UN general assembly taking a stance on Israel's occupation of territories doesn't matter as the US stands obediently with Israel and Western countries are eager to trade with Israel.

In any situation the UK won't face something like the South Africe faced even from the EU member states. For example for my puny little country the UK one of it's largest trading partners, hence the country has absolutely no desire of punishing the UK trade... we've already have had the burden of limiting our trade with our Eastern neighbor because of the events in Ukraine.

Ultimately, the solution I'd ike to see is the abolishment of all political parties (group-think). — Harry Hindu

I would dare to say, even if the response is hostility from others here, that in a republic with representative democracy, the political party system works fairly well.

Assuming there isn't either too many parties or just two as in the US. Or just one, which simply isn't a democracy. Two parties simply cannot represent all the voters while having two hundred parties will make the system incapable of functioning. A party (or duopoly) that has fixed hold on the political system will create corruption and alienate the party from the voters.

Popcorn anyone? — Mayor of Simpleton

Good luck with your November tragicomedy.

What is the title on the Finnish book? At least Americans didn't have to worry about any dirty Marxists manipulating them. — Bitter Crank

Lol. The closer book is "Mao's thoughts".

And if you ask older Swedes about their television of from the 60's to the 80's I would guess they would have similar recollections. That's the classic european social democracy in action I guess.

I was going to make a claim for the golden age of television, but then remembered that in the middle of my golden era, Newton Minow proclaimed 1960s television to be "a vast wasteland". God, Minow hadn't seen anything yet. Now the wasteland has been enriched by a giant dung heap. (Minow is still alive - he's 94; I read that he was up to date on how bad commercial media continues to be.) — Bitter Crank

My children's rabbits decided that our family had had enough of watching "the vast wasteland" and nibbled the television cables. Nobody actually was bothered about the vandalism (or statement?) that our lagomorphs had done as usually we only get together to watch something by going to the movies and otherwise members use the tablets/smart phones/computers (even if I did protect the computer cables). Which tells something where television is going. I did think my principal in my school was crazy when he didn't have a television, but now days it wouldn't be at all so radical.

The purpose of television, for instance, is to sell audiences to advertisers using the content as bait. On the other hand, there is also a business of selling news. It takes a financial base to support news gathering, editing, and presentation, Even in the non-profit sector, NPR has to have revenue--more than it can get from fund drives (shudder); hence, those blasted "enhanced corporate support acknowledgements". No revenue, no publication. That's why so many newspapers have folded. — Bitter Crank

There has been also the state financed television & broadcast, where basically the funding comes from tax income from those having a television (as here) or other taxes.

This does have an effect on the agenda of the broadcaster. Here the intention of the government to educate and civilize the population, which is very evident from the assortment of educational series and simply shows that you would never see the light of day even in cable in the US. US type commercialism was especially frowned upon. It's a telling case how the free market compares with central planning.

This lead even to a doctoral thesis being made in Finland of youth not listening to the radio in the late 1980's with the author giving various reasons EXCEPT the now obvious, that there simply was 1 fucking program for 1 hour that played pop & rock music weekly. (Of course now the youth listen to radio the most and nearly all play pop&rock music). When I told to my friends in school that in the US there was on Saturday mornings cartoons like "Superfriends" airing, they simply couldn't fathom it. Without even the knowledge what people really would like, a central planner has limited knowledge what would be popular and can dismiss things that are popular in other places.

What a cartoonist thought of Finnish TV in the 1960's:


Of course add one commercial channel (either TV or Radio) and this changes the whole situation. Viewer numbers tell simply just what is popular and public and the public broadcaster has to respond to the challenge. There is a logic to the fact that something that gets far more viewers than other programs has something in it. And this public/commercial mix may actually work quite well especially if the response of the public broadcaster is to make well done and insightful dramas and fine documentaries, not the cheap talk shows. Hence the BBC is a good example of a public broadcaster that has made globally popular series (even if the language used is it's ace in the hand).

The Monty Python Flying Circus aired in 1969 on the BBC. Here John Cleese and the ministry of Silly walks. Hence public broadcasting can hit a nerve just as well as the commercial side.

According to polling, almost twice as many Biden supporters as Trump supporters say they’ll vote by mail this year. Over 500,000 mail-in votes have been rejected this year, far outpacing 2016. Perhaps this is why Democrats have pivoted away from championing mail-in voting. — NOS4A2

Great. So if Trump would win the Democrats could argue that the Republicans manipulated the mail-in votes. The same kind of switcheroo that Republicans had with the FBI and Comey as we have seen. Or whatever :shade:

If the EU would be truly a Federation and controlled by a singular entity that would drive the objectives of the EU itself, it would be worse. Luckily it really isn't the US of Europe.

If a member decides to leave and this is somehow accepted, then the logical response would make it as utterly devastating for the leaving member as possible. Hence in the UK example, the answer would have been to say to Scotland that is totally free to join the EU and it will be considered as a member state already with the only requirement of being that as a EU country it has to treat it's southern border as frontier of the EU in every way.

That would have sent a message to every member state that "If you leave us, we promise we will rip apart your country by luring the richest parts of your country into the EU". With Italy it would be the north, with Spain, Catalonia (of course!) and with Germany, lets say Bavaria.

Also a well functioning federation would nip right from the bud any secessionist or exiting-EU ideas as so crazy that the people saying those kind of things ought to be in a mental asylum. Or if not there, at least they are inherently racist, nativist, violent skinhead types and simply deranged evil people. After all, how many know that there's a Texas Nationalist Movement? The state has already been independent and was recognized by at least Belgium and Netherlands to be an independent country.

Of course this didn't happen as the EU is still a semi-loose union of independent nation states. And member being independent states means that there is few if any control of the EU over them in the domestic political arena. As nation states control the EU it was Spain that was utterly panicked about the possibility of Scotland waltzing into the EU and creating an example for Catalonia to continue. Hence the EU gave the Scottish Independence a cold response without any kind of contemplation of an independent Scotland continuing with the all the agreements of the EU-Britain, which was what the Scottish nationalists wanted.

And from this example you can notice, that the EU as a truly functioning "United States of Europe" would be a far sinister player than it is now.

And usually the real energy comes from them being so annoyed about liberals and leftists. That's the trick that Trump has: it isn't so much about what Trump has done (which isn't much), it's the fact that Trump annoys so much the left. That's what get them to be so happy about Trump. Other Republican candidates don't get leftists so angry.

Presidential debate. One of these guys will have the power to destroy the world. We can't be bothered to talk about that, and neither can they. — Hippyhead

In any way, the whole debate was not very presidential.

except for the fact that the person who all conservatives are rallying behind is a man who embodies the exact opposite of the things they claim to believe in. — Mr Bee

I don't think that all conservatives rally around a man who embodies the exact opposite of the things they claim to believe in. Just as not every person who sees himself or herself as a liberal was rallying around Bernie.

Tourists don't stay, and they also tend to be wealthy, respectful and support local businesses. — Tim3003

And if they would not be so, people would be against them. You can just imagine if the those tourists wouldn't spend a dime, but on the contrary would be begging on the streets. It wouldn't matter if those beggars would just stay a while and be replaced with others. You could briefly notice this during the German unification when the border between the East and West collapsed. The Easterners were naturally interested to see West Germany, but weren't the typical wealthy tourist. They filled the tourist attractions but ate from their own meager lunchboxes and didn't spend as normal tourists for the simple reason as they came from a socialist country. The West German shopkeepers etc. weren't enthusiastic about it. Hence, Mexicans wouldn't tolerate American spring breakers, if those youngsters wouldn't create income. And neither the Spanish wouldn't tolerate northerners on their beaches if it wouldn't support the local economy.

I see today Boris has marked out our lack of brickies, welders and butchers; and there are calls for the govt to lower the immigration restrictions for these occupations post-Brexit. — Tim3003

Yes and there are approx 120,000 vacancies in the social care sector and about 40,000 nursing vacancies, not to mention all the crops which need harvesting. — Punshhh

Especially the health care sector is the area where the country with higher wages becomes a magnet for health care professionals as they are in a permanent shortage as the population gets older.

Also, the simple fact is that in a prosperous society there simply are jobs that people won't take. Especially here where there is a tight social security net and welfare state: you will get perpetual unemployment benefits, the state will pay your rent and hence provide housing. People will start calculating if it's really profitable to work in a crappy job and have less free time, yet have exactly basically same amount of money to spend. Fruit picking is a traditional example of this, as the job is too difficult for low priced robots to do.

And finally it is a fact that much needed professionals are sought after everywhere. And if I recall correctly, at least in the 1990's if you could show that you invested enough pounds in the UK, you got your permit to immigrate to the UK immediately no matter where you came. Money talks.

One British historian, who has written about the history of London, said aptly about how Britons feel about foreigners, which can be generalized to all people: "As long as foreigners are seen to bring money to the community, they are tolerated in Britain".

And this is true. Nobody hates the vast swarms of tourists as they bring money to the country, as they create jobs for the local population. Yet if the foreigners are seen to compete with the local population for jobs, immediately emerges a resentment against the foreigners which we call xenophobia (or racism, as that is so popular today). And worst of all, if foreigners seem to be literally stealing our wealth, it is likely we call them the occupiers, the enemy, and the young men are up in arms fighting them.

The historian thought that the English, or at least Londoners hadn't change much from the sixteenth century and from the times of the Evil May Day riots (in 1517), when the scum of the Earth foreigners were the hated Dutch. When times are bad, foreigners are the perfect culprit.

But not the long history of racism in the US, Lord no! — Kenosha Kid

How the war on drugs has been implemented can be argued as part of how systemic racism continues, but anyway...

You'd enjoy the report I linked to frank above. It's actually adjusting for economic variables in the context of police killings. — fdrake

I'll read that.

Rereading your post, I saw a different claim. That instead of adjusting for the per capita percentages, "total offences charged" should be conditioned on for calculating whether there is a disparity or not in deaths due to use of lethal force by law enforcement. Outside of the issue of whether the causal chain:

X is charged with an offence -> X is killed by police.

actually makes sense as an explanation here, which is the modelling assumption underlying that conditioning. adjusting for that does make the numbers more in line — fdrake

Thank you reading and understanding my point correctly, and as this was done in a simple google search, it surely wasn't meant to be a thorough statistical inquiry. Only that where there is more crime, there are likely more police encounters and likely more excessive use of force and this should be taken into account.

If race also influences whether X is subject to force in an offence charging encounter, it'll have an effect over and above the preferential sampling effect. — fdrake

And of course there also is the question if "total offences charged" has in itself already a bias that makes charges made more likely towards blacks than white, which could be the case. The question that comes up to me is how big role does the war on drugs have to play with this.

Conditioning like that doesn't explain this kind of thing though, taken from the paper you referenced:

Further, although force was employed in fewer than 4% of contacts for all racial/ethnic groups in 2008, blacks were nearly three times more likely than whites to experience any use of force during an LE encounter. — fdrake

What that encounter is might differ, but as I've said there's an obvious difference and there is a statistic that shows it.

But at that point, we really need to start talking about models, rather than comparing data in a naive hatchet job way. — fdrake

Before models, best to understand underlying issues like the impact on war on drugs, as I mentioned already, or how broken communities really go into free fall in the US making a huge divide between the prosperous and poor communities. Poverty goes through racial lines still in the US.

Please explain how that third statistic is in line. — Kenosha Kid

If deaths or prison sentences would have no racial bias, then the total offenses charged would be a good indicator in telling how many go to jail or how many are killed by the police.

32% differs from 27% by 5%, which is noticeable, yet 38% (percentage of inmates) differs from 27% by 11%, which is huge.

Yes, but they leant him their support (the majority of them) on condition that he would get Brexit done. They will swing back behind a moderate Labour Party at the next election. So it was not for conservative policies (other than Brexit) that they voted that way, they held their noses when they voted. — Punshhh

And this tells a lot about how class based even British politics is. Because usually people who vote for a certain party are defined to be the supporters of that party. Not some people that are "just now" voting for them.

In the UK it is particularly acute, the housing crisis has been developing for 40 years now with an end to any provision of social housing over this whole period. Not only prices being unaffordable, we have no kerbs on rental fees, which are strangling the young with debt. While many large properties have one or two old people living there. The young are really in a bad place financially and they are wary of trusting the Conservatives when they promise to solve the problem. Because they caused and presided over it for the 40 years. — Punshhh

Add there the quite rapid population growth and economic growth being concentrated on few larger cities.

Yes, there is a deep split in the Labour Party between the moderates and the radicals, which keeps coming to the fore and prevents them getting into office. They need a strong leader to break this curse, Blair did it and many people hope that Kier Starmer can pull it off now. God knows it's needed now. — Punshhh

It is always the "extremist fringe" or the "traditionalists" that create problems to mainstream political party, which alienate a lot of people not closely attached to the ideological side of the party, be the parties either on the right or on the left.

Yet the old class divide may not work so well today. Simply put, all parties need to evolve as the society evolves in order to exist in the long run.

For reasons already given but seemingly ignored. This isn't the 80s anymore. You can't just ignore evidence and claim it's a mystery/non-issue. — Kenosha Kid

Based on statistics, the incarceration rates of blacks is the statistic that isn't in line. Likely here the biggest reason is the war on drugs (see the stats). Yet the percentage of offenses charged is quite close to the percentage of deaths due to use of lethal force by the police.

..........................................white..black
Percentage of population: 63......13
of total offenses charged : 69......27
Deaths Due to Use of Lethal Force by Law Enforcement: 54......32
Inmates in prison by race: 57.....38

Yes, that doesn't diminish my point though. — Punshhh

At least they didn't bungle up with economic growth when other countries in the West prospered. That would have been the thing.

In the UK, the left right political divide has been, for the last half century or so, in line with a class divide. — Punshhh

This is actually similar to other countries, actually.

Also the majority of the working classes have improved their circumstances over the last generation and become more middle class. But they are still held at arms length by the traditional privelidged classes by an ingrained, largely unconscious, bias and code. Often based on where people live, what schools and colleges they went to etc. This may be the same in other countries, I don't know, perhaps you can help me there — Punshhh

What makes the UK different is a deeper class divide than other countries, starting from even such things as the language/accent people use or even what sports they follow. British I think are very class conscious and not just the upper class. I think this might be changing though. And yes, it goes through party lines too this class divide. You could see this from Boris Johnson that he acknowledged humbly in his election victory that the conservatives had gotten "labor" votes from labor areas. Usually no politicians would make this kind of remark.

The young grew up during this and are now impoverished by continuing inflation in the housing market, meaning only privelidged young can purchase property*, with the help of their parents. — Punshhh

This asset inflation is typical in many countries and a result of the economic and monetary policies implemented after the financial crisis all over the world.

. This has resulted in an en-mass move to the left among the young, which is also enmeshed in the newly developed ideologies around combatting climate change and protecting the environment. Issues which are largely denied by the privelidged (largely over 50 years of age) establishment, in favour of more free market capitalism. — Punshhh

I think environmentalism broke through in the 1980's in other countries with Green parties. With tory and labor governments this might not have been so apparent in the UK.

The problem with our recent election is that the alternative was possibly even more scary than the Conservative party. A Corbyn government would have been a radically left leaning government and there just aren't enough people in the population who could vote for that kind of radical change. — Punshhh

This might be the real bungle up in British politics. Indeed, it likely would have been a moment for the conservatives to lick their wounds after a long time as the ruling party go to the opposition after everything, but the labor party itself get carried away.

The US is not a democracy, nor ought it ever aim to be. — creativesoul

This the argument that it's a Republic? I guess democracies are usually republics, even if some are technically monarchies.

Factually, the former. White people die in police custody too. But black people particularly so. They are twice as likely to be killed than white people. — Kenosha Kid

And also twice as likely to be arrested, even more likely to be incarcerated and have higher crime rates, yet also poorer and higher unemployment numbers. So why the former?