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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49084605
Boris Johnson has been elected new Conservative leader in a ballot of party members and will become the next UK prime minister.
He beat Jeremy Hunt comfortably, winning 92,153 votes to his rival's 46,656.
The former London mayor takes over from Theresa May on Wednesday.
In his victory speech, Mr Johnson promised he would "deliver Brexit, unite the country and defeat Jeremy Corbyn".
Speaking at the Queen Elizabeth II centre in London, he said: "We are going to energise the country.
"We are going to get Brexit done on 31 October and take advantage of all the opportunities it will bring with a new spirit of can do.
"We are once again going to believe in ourselves, and like some slumbering giant we are going to rise and ping off the guy ropes of self doubt and negativity."
Any other comments would be editorializing...
(Score: 2, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 24 2019, @01:57PM (21 children)
The UK is a constitutional monarchy. Democracy doesn't have anything to do with it. Why do people confuse the Western world and democracy all the time? The US isn't a democracy, either. It is a republic, with a democratic form of representation, which has little to do with a genuine democracy. I'm almost curious enough to search for all the nations with a democracy for a government. There may actually be one or two. Don't look to the old British Commonwealth nations - those are all subject to Her Majesty, by one means or another.
Democracy. At times, I get tired of hearing the word, because few people understand their governments, and how they relate to democracy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 24 2019, @02:04PM (10 children)
So when people voted for brexit that didn't mean it was supposed to happen according to the UK system?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 24 2019, @02:18PM (7 children)
What it meant was, the people were given an opportunity to feel important, while the politicians decided what they were actually going to do. Very much like the US, don't you see?
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday July 24 2019, @02:29PM (6 children)
Yup. Look up selectorate theory, in particular the nominal selectorate vs. the real selectorate. In the US case, for example, the nominal selectorate is the Republican rank and file, the real selectorate are the rich, and large corporates.
(Score: 3, Informative) by driverless on Wednesday July 24 2019, @02:36PM (3 children)
Forgot to add: As the winning candidate, your primary task is to reward the real selectorate, the ones that count, and you can safely ignore the nominal selectorate, in the sense of not needing to give them anything except platitudes, since they don't count for much, thus "nominal" vs. "real".
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 24 2019, @03:30PM (2 children)
You set this up, didn't you?
https://fromarsetoelbow.blogspot.com/2019/06/selectorate-theory.html [blogspot.com]
(Score: 2) by driverless on Thursday July 25 2019, @01:01AM (1 child)
Naah, wasn't me, I fell asleep by the second paragraph.
If you want to read about selectorate theory, try "The Dictator's Handbook", although you need to beware of the authors' annoying habit of cherry-picking specific examples of autocratic rulers to illustrate their ideas.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 25 2019, @03:06PM
I was referring to the name of the site, more than anything. Arse to elbows? Fair enough, you didn't set me up, LOL.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Wednesday July 24 2019, @03:41PM (1 child)
Sounds reasonable, but I don't know why you single out Republicans. Democrats do the same thing but with a different set of favored multinationals.
(Score: 2) by DeVilla on Thursday July 25 2019, @08:41PM
I was assuming the idea was the republicans are in the white house right now and 4 years ago it would have been the democrats. Maybe I'm incorrectly assuming the post even handed.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 24 2019, @05:38PM
Well, it was a nonbinding referendum, so... yes, that was one of the perfectly legal and intended outcomes under their system.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 24 2019, @06:13PM
I don't care your political leanings but in this day and age people vote how the powerful want.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Shire on Wednesday July 24 2019, @03:39PM (3 children)
Not sure what you mean by "genuine democracy". Usually when only the voice of the populous is counted that's refered to as "mob rule".
The US is both a "Representative Democracy" and a "Constitutional Democracy" and this combination is called a "Constitutional Republic". The people have a voice both through voting and through their respective reprsentatives but it's not a "majority rules" government. The constitution is the law of the land and the government and the people are constrained by it.
It's pretty much understood that a "genuine democracy" is a disaster just like any form of socialism or communism. Rampant corruption exists in all human endevours, but systems reliant on pure democracy (again - mob rule), socialism, and communism lead to UNCHECKED corruption.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Wednesday July 24 2019, @03:49PM (2 children)
At the state level, at least for those states which allow it, the initiative process makes mob rule ever more important. This coupled with the Reynolds v. Simms decision, which destroyed the American concept of a senate at the state level, turned all the state senates into nothing more than a second house of reps, and thereby transferred almost all political power to the large cities in those states, another form of mob rule. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_v._Sims [wikipedia.org]
(*)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday July 25 2019, @05:16PM (1 child)
This is an interesting point, though it's important to note that many state Houses of Representatives were also not apportioned well at the time according to population. It's true that State Senates were more likely to be explicitly apportioned in some other way, but House districts often became very unequal over time due to people migrating within a state, and states often just avoided redistricting in order to keep incumbents and incumbent parties in power. If there's one thing to learn from that decision, it's that keeping bad districting in place for long periods of time was pretty common in many states.
Note that I'm not necessarily disagreeing that there might be valid alternative forms of governance/representation other than "One person, one vote" policy that the U.S. was suddenly thrust into with the Warren Court. And I definitely think there was some severe judicial overreach in the reasoning of these decisions. On the other hand, without this sort of reasoning, legislative bodies often devolve into representation of random interests which aren't necessarily representing "rural vs. urban" in a fairer way, but just serving the elected officials -- see, for example, the rotten borough [wikipedia.org] problem, which manifested in a different way in many state houses in the U.S.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday July 25 2019, @07:29PM
Those are valid points. In a lot of ways, we are in a damned if you do damned if you don't situation because so often those who run for office only have their own self-interest at heart, and those who fund those candidates definitely always only have their own self-interest at heart.
Being one of those in a rural area, I do feel left out of the process though and surely there must be a middle ground -- simply making senate districts conform to county lines (1 per county) would hinder the steamroller effect metropolitan areas have over the rest of the state. I live in WA and the I5 corridor from Olympia to Seattle (about 60 miles) has more than half the Senate votes here in a state of 66k square miles. Whatever Seattle decides it wants, the rest of the state gets -- no negotiating necessary. I think that is a recipe for instability.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 24 2019, @05:15PM
This sounds like some hipster high-schooler who just had their first civics class and wants to sound smarter than everybody else in the room.
It is correct that Britain and the US are not Direct Democracies, but nobody ever said they were. However, they are Democracies [wikipedia.org]. If you don't trust the "encyclopedia anybody can edit," just look at the etymology; "rule of the people" (as opposed to rule of religion, a dictator, or other)
As proof of Britain being a democracy, consider Brexit itself. David Cameron certainly didn't want it, so unless you think the Queen secretly wanted it and pulled a bunch of strings, it was the vote of the people (hacked, manipulated, or otherwise) which caused this situation.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 24 2019, @05:17PM (4 children)
"The problem with capitalism is that eventually everyone but the capitalists runs out of money." - Margaret Truther
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 24 2019, @05:22PM
Blaming capitalism for a bunch of government BS? God you people are easy to scam.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 24 2019, @05:55PM (1 child)
Sorry, little popgun - I didn't mean to trigger you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 25 2019, @01:05AM
Free Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange! UK: Strong support for Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning at Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival [wsws.org] and Indian auto workers speak out in defence of Assange and Manning [wsws.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 25 2019, @12:13PM
Given that nobody has "run out" of money, does that mean that everyone is a capitalist? At some point, you probably ought to wonder why the world is doing so well.