Tory dictatorship

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KM2
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Joined: 23 Oct 2008, 5:38pm

Tory dictatorship

Post by KM2 »

I didn’t think things had accelerated so fast, I seem to remember that Churchill said it was likely to happen.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uM1H2l25UdU
pwa
Posts: 17357
Joined: 2 Oct 2011, 8:55pm

Re: Tory dictatorship

Post by pwa »

There is not a dictatorship and there is not likely to be one in the foreseeable future. At this moment it looks quite likely that the Tories will not even have a Parliamentary majority after the next election. And Boris's personal fate looks even shakier, with fellow Tories sharpening their knives behind his back. I am reminded of the tenure of John Major, who, taking over from Thatcher, failed to hang on to power when everything went wrong for him. Boris (different from Major in most other ways) looks like he might be another failed Tory PM who brings to an end a long Tory stint in power.
thirdcrank
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Joined: 9 Jan 2007, 2:44pm

Re: Tory dictatorship

Post by thirdcrank »

It's a serial dictatorship: an increasing part of the power of the State is concentrated in the prime minister of the day. One danger is that the trappings of tradition etc., disguise and legitimate what's happening.
francovendee
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Joined: 5 May 2009, 6:32am

Re: Tory dictatorship

Post by francovendee »

I think he's rather overstating it but tampering with civil liberties, trying to noble courts etc does put a lot of power into the government hands they never had before.
This can't be a good thing and it's going on without any notice taken of it. We're all too wrapped up with Covid, Brexit issues, not to mention social media and Come Dancing.
pwa
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Re: Tory dictatorship

Post by pwa »

thirdcrank wrote: 27 Nov 2021, 8:11am It's a serial dictatorship: an increasing part of the power of the State is concentrated in the prime minister of the day. One danger is that the trappings of tradition etc., disguise and legitimate what's happening.
Look at the way the media mocked BJ for his botched speech a few days ago. Does that happen in dictatorships? No, of course it doesn't. There is a long tradition of the UK media and public mocking our leader, and that continues. Look at the real dictatorships around the world and see what happens there when folk mock their leader.
thirdcrank
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Re: Tory dictatorship

Post by thirdcrank »

I thought the word "serial" was explicit
Ben@Forest
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Re: Tory dictatorship

Post by Ben@Forest »

According to alevelpolitics.com

In conclusion, the powers of the Prime Minister have become increasingly limited in legislation over recent years, but the surge in personalised leadership and presidential government in the UK has caused the electorate to become increasingly accepting of PMs that push the boundaries in the powers they can exercise. This, however, is different to a practical increase in powers that the Prime Minister has access too, and so it can be said with great certainty that in recent years, the power of the Prime Minister has not increased at all, but rather has seen a depression due to legal and social changes in the last 20 years.

It's from a rather good and much longer essay written in 2019 and which references as far back as Thatcher, but I'd have thought the prorogation of parliament judicial decision in 2019, which found it unlawful, showed the power of the PM - any PM - is not dictatorial. But as a poor A level student :wink: l don't know if the current government has changed anything since.
pwa
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Joined: 2 Oct 2011, 8:55pm

Re: Tory dictatorship

Post by pwa »

thirdcrank wrote: 27 Nov 2021, 8:21am I thought the word "serial" was explicit
A dictator is an individual, so labelling a series of individuals as a "serial dictatorship" is a bit contradictory. An oxymoron, perhaps. And it looks less like a serial anything if the Tories don't cling on to power next time round. They are looking a bit shaky at the moment.
Stevek76
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Joined: 28 Jul 2015, 11:23am

Re: Tory dictatorship

Post by Stevek76 »

That decision by the supreme court however directly led to the review on judicial reviews.

There is nothing to stop a PM with a supporting majority (which, thanks to a broken voting system can be obtained with under 40% of the vote) from legislating to nullify that supreme court check.

That the main check on a dictatorship appears to be leader hubris rather than anything else isn't exactly reassuring even if it may well do for Johnson as much as it did for Thatcher and Blair.
pwa wrote: 27 Nov 2021, 8:18am Does that happen in dictatorships? No, of course it doesn't.
In established ones? No. In establishing ones though, absolutely it happens. You don't need to eliminate media opposition, simply tame it sufficiently and with most of the press on their side and most of the TV broadcasters, particularly the one with the widest coverage, the BBC, restrained by a very poor interpretation of 'balance' we certainly have that. Once the rest of the press can be gradually suppressed once power is cemented legally.

Just consider the following:
Staffing changes in BBC news to those consistently favourable to the ruling party
Efforts to get Dacre as chair of ofcom

Elections bill:
Voter ID laws
Reduction in Electoral Commission independence with cabinet secretary power to set 'strategy and policy'
Change of London assembly and regional/city mayors to fptp voting
Power to arbitrarily remove registered third party campaigners
Centralised interferences/depowering of regional bodies (eg TfL, TfN)

Policing bill:
Number of issues with the codification of public nuisance, single person protests etc but just recently, during committee/report stage of the legislative process the gov has wedged in the following:
Specific offences for locking on and obstructing transport works
Increased penalty for obstructing highway to 6 months jail (amusingly this is the same power used for obstructions of the pavement)
Additional stop and search powers, including to do so without suspicion of officer thinks offences may be committed in the local area.
Effective order to ban individuals from committing any further protests.

Those are not the actions of a government that respects democracy and the reality is that the UK's constitutional setup relies far too much on what are effectively 'gentlemens agreements' rather than democratic checks that have actual teeth.
The contents of this post, unless otherwise stated, are opinions of the author and may actually be complete codswallop
Tim Holman
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Joined: 1 Aug 2020, 9:51am

Re: Tory dictatorship

Post by Tim Holman »

Bread and circuses and covid and brexit to divert our attention from the corruption and dishonesty,
Tim
pwa
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Joined: 2 Oct 2011, 8:55pm

Re: Tory dictatorship

Post by pwa »

Stevek76 wrote: 27 Nov 2021, 4:57pm ........Policing bill:
Number of issues with the codification of public nuisance, single person protests etc but just recently, during committee/report stage of the legislative process the gov has wedged in the following:
Specific offences for locking on and obstructing transport works
Increased penalty for obstructing highway to 6 months jail (amusingly this is the same power used for obstructions of the pavement)
Additional stop and search powers, including to do so without suspicion of officer thinks offences may be committed in the local area.
Effective order to ban individuals from committing any further protests..............
The question of where to draw the line with "Stop and search" is one that governments of all persuasions have grappled with for decades. It has never resulted in a dictatorship being established. It is like watching waves hitting a beach then washing back out, time after time. A specific issue (eg knife crime in London) comes to the fore and the government of the day encourages the police to be more pro-active, getting knives off the street by searching folk before they use them. That issue fades but another (eg black people in London feeling targeted by "stop and search) becomes more prominent and the police are encouraged not to use "stop and search" so much, especially in areas where people tend to be from racial groups sensitised to this issue. Back and forth, back and forth. It is a tricky area to get right, which is one reason why this constant tinkering goes on.

The other stuff is mainly to do with dealing with folk who make their peaceful protest by stopping other folk going about their lawful business, which in my book is not peaceful protest at all. It is aggression because it is designed to cause stress to the victims. Stress is harm and that harm is intended. The "protest" is in a good cause but the method of protest has innocent victims and those victims need protecting. Upping penalties seems like a reasonable response. I expect you disagree with that, but even so, you must see that this is not, in itself, an indication of a dictatorship being established. It is a reaction to a specific problem.
Ben@Forest
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Joined: 28 Jan 2013, 5:58pm

Re: Tory dictatorship

Post by Ben@Forest »

pwa wrote: 28 Nov 2021, 5:18am The other stuff is mainly to do with dealing with folk who make their peaceful protest by stopping other folk going about their lawful business, which in my book is not peaceful protest at all. It is aggression because it is designed to cause stress to the victims. Stress is harm and that harm is intended. The "protest" is in a good cause but the method of protest has innocent victims and those victims need protecting. Upping penalties seems like a reasonable response. I expect you disagree with that, but even so, you must see that this is not, in itself, an indication of a dictatorship being established. It is a reaction to a specific problem.
Agreed - and that cost of policing is huge. The Metropolitan Police cost of policing the Insulate Britain road blocking protests for one month through part of Sep/part of Oct was £2 million. The Surrey and Hertfordshire Police costs were around £100,000 apiece and it's possible the Essex, Kent and Thames Valley Police forces all spent money too.

Nearly every adult in this country has either experienced or knows someone who has suffered from poor police response in terms of theft, burglary, anti-social behaviour and so on - they generally don't want their taxes spent on removing people who have stuck themselves to roads, let alone having to suffer the inconvenience of it.
DaveReading
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Joined: 24 Feb 2019, 5:37pm

Re: Tory dictatorship

Post by DaveReading »

pwa wrote: 27 Nov 2021, 3:04pm
thirdcrank wrote: 27 Nov 2021, 8:21am I thought the word "serial" was explicit
A dictator is an individual, so labelling a series of individuals as a "serial dictatorship" is a bit contradictory. An oxymoron, perhaps.
The people of Haiti might disagree.
thirdcrank
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Joined: 9 Jan 2007, 2:44pm

Re: Tory dictatorship

Post by thirdcrank »

Apart from historic dynasties, all dictators/ tyrants / autocrats have found difficulties maintaining their power against insurrection/ rebellions/ foreign invasions (and in the case of dynasties, power struggles among potential successors.) The difference in western democracies is that there's are systems for deciding the succession, not all particularly democratic.

Now, some dictators have been ruthless to the point of genocide to get their own way. I'd not suggest that anything like that is happening here, but it seems naïve to think that the UK isn't slipping into dictatorship. Our system is predicated on cabinet government with the prime minister being first among equals, each minister having responsibility for their own portfolio or area of , well, responsibility.

Our system has also evolved to protect the power of the elected HoC from other power bases: the monarchy; the courts; HoL; military; Civil Service. We've allowed the power of the elected HoC to be increasingly concentrated in the hands of the person holding the office of PM, often characterised as Number 10. The traditional but unwritten checks on the power of the PM have been incrementally neutralised.

One of the things protecting us at the moment seems to be that the current office holder is lazy
PDQ Mobile
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Joined: 2 Aug 2015, 4:40pm

Re: Tory dictatorship

Post by PDQ Mobile »

It would seem Ken Clark also sees a growing risk.

""that great European Kenneth Clarke observing that under Johnson, whose Brexit-inflicted damage can no longer be confused with the impact of Covid, “we are now getting dangerously close to the ‘elected dictatorship’ that Lord Hailsham, the former lord chancellor, warned us about half a century ago”."

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... its-senses
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