[klelatti]

I think Brexit has allowed a sort of nihilism to creep into U.K. politics. If you can live with a policy that has such a demonstrable adverse effect on the economy and so many other things then why worry about the impact of other policies.

The standard approach for the government now seems to be to look for short term wins in the tabloids and ignore the long term.

And this is on top of the huge distraction that Brexit has been.

[tim333]

Brexit caused an odd selection effect in the Tory party where sensible responsible politicians such as Ken Clarke and maybe Theresa May were pushed out for pointing out the problems with Brexit and replaced but more the irresponsible fibbing variety who were prepared to deny reality and say everything with hard brexit will be great such as Boris and his fellows. Not sure where this all goes next. Maybe to Starmer who at least is responsible but will have quite the mess to deal with.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

> The standard approach for the government now seems to be to look for short term wins in the tabloids and ignore the long term.

Was this ever not the case?

[dragontamer]

* The 1800s of the USA were marked by a large, government program to invent pocket watches to solve the issue of trains crashing into each other.

* There were additional long-term government projects, such as ARPA's Network (aka: the internet).

* Strategic supercomputer initiatives as well.

* The debate over USA's social security is all measured in the year 2040 or later. People constantly use social security as an example of "short term thinking", but policies from the 1980s have been forward looking for at least the next 50 years.

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I dunno much about UK politics, but I imagine that similar forward looking projects and/or decisions / debates have occurred.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

Just because you demonstrated some long-term thinking in the future does not mean the US government was not short-sighted in the past.

I don't know if it it was or not, but a few counter-points is not proof.

I am sure you could find millions of counter-points that the US and the UK are currently long-term thinking (even though I think most of us can agree that isn't the subjective truth).

[dragontamer]

> I don't know if it it was or not, but a few counter-points is not proof.

Literally no one in politics thinks about purely short term issues actually. I *disagree* with my political opponents, but that's because my vision of the next 30 years is grossly different than their vision of the next 30 years.

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This isn't about "counter-examples". This is about you failing to provide even the first example of short-term thinking. What exactly is your "short term" problem that was messed up here?

Brexit, in particular, was never supposed to be a quick-and-easy process. I think it was an idiotic idea, but everyone knew it'd have short-term pain. You can call the UK Brexit crowd stupid perhaps for misreading the future. But they weren't thinking "short term" at all.

I've got criticisms of the Brexit crowd, and that has more to do with xenophobia, europ-phobia, self-centered thinking, etc. etc. But it doesn't actually have to do with "short term vs long term" thinking. If anything at all, the Brexit crowd was very forward looking (just wrong / incorrect about it, if anything, misjudging the short-term effects of Brexit's decision)

[klelatti]

Maybe some of the Brexit crowd was thinking about the long term but Johnson certainly wasn’t: he was thinking about his chances of getting into No 10.

[DiggyJohnson]

Politicians always are thinking about their next election. The issue of elected (I understand the PM appointment process by the way) shouldn’t be a revelation to anyone.

It still stands that these short cited representatives and officials champion policies that come from without, not within, their own scheming.

[ajb]

There's a useful distinction between lying and bullshitting: liers know what the truth is and want to convince you it's something else, bullshitters don't even care (or potentially, even know) what the truth is.

Governments often did things which failed and then tried to paint them as wins. They also often went for short term wins. But they were real wins (in the short term) even if they failed to get them. I think it's new to have a government run by someone so thoroughly a bullshitter that they don't care about the actual effect of their policies, just how the announcement makes them look. Because, fundamentally most politicians, that get to the top positions, actually want power and to do something with it, even if it's not something you'd agree with.

[klelatti]

Absolutely. Levelling up is a case in point. Sounds good and wins votes but never any serious intention to follow through.

[wizofaus]

Governments are surely exactly the place most super-long-term projects have to happen (and typically have happened). It's pretty hard for a corporation to convince shareholders to invest in something that won't pay dividends for 15-20 years. Religious organizations building cathedrals is probably a rare example of it happening below the state-level (it's hard to imagine without belief in higher powers or an afterlife etc. why many people would thoroughly commit themselves to a project they won't see completed in their lifetimes).

[tuatoru]

Tabloids have only existed for 150 years or so. Before them, most newspapers thought their role was to help voters and investors make good decisions.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

Did they? I think their role was always to make money.

Newspapers have a VERY long history of being owned and operated by the rich with a healthy portion of PR / propaganda.

[tuatoru]

In those days their readership was mostly people with at least a little money. They were investors' social media. Their incentives were to report the economic facts of life.

[WhyIsItGlowing]

The feedback loop has got ever shorter.

The approach now is to announce a non-feasible hard-right policy in the right wing tabloids, wait for The Guardian to react the next day, denounce that, then the day after forget the whole thing (like Liz Truss' civil service paycuts)