[jimnotgym]

I don't know why the UK bothers to make new laws. It has no hope of enforcing them. The Police are mired in scandal and cut to the bone. The courts system is taking apart, with criminal barristers forced to strike for pay, courts closed and massive backlogs in both the criminal and civil branches. Prisons are full, and taking apart. A terrorist on remand escaped last week.

What are they possibly going to do with yet another law?

Edit: spelling.I use a swipe keyboard on my phone due to arthritis, and weird misspellings are a side effect. Sorry to the pedant below who couldn't see past one typo well enough to address the point.

[PaulKeeble]

The point isn't to enforce it, the judicial system has completely collapsed. The point is just to appeal to their voters who don't understand none of this can be enforced and when it doesn't happen (their own failures) they can claim the deep state and civil service are all to against them doing what people want.

[biscuitech]

I hate that you're right. It doesn't apply exclusively to the UK

[atlantic]

The point of much recent legislation isn't enforcement on a large scale. It's to give the state the right to spy on and arrest anyone at all, since they criminalize ordinary behaviour. It creates an atmosphere of fear and conformity.

[Exoristos]

They find the resources when it's time to go after their political enemies or make an example of a commoner. Or did you really believe this bill is meant to protect children?

[jimnotgym]

>Or did you really believe this bill is meant to protect children?

I don't see how that is implied by my comment.

[gustavus]

You misunderstand. The NSA has collected massive amounts of data on everyone, they could easily solve many murders, burglaries and most other crimes. But they don't, in fact they don't event really stop terrorists.

So why collect all this data? They do it so they have a massive backlog of information, so that when someone decides you need to be taken care of they no longer have to figure out something to pin on you, they don't have to navigate around that pesky 4th Amendment. The purpose is so that when they decide you need to be taken care of they can go through the backlog find whatever they want and then boom. You're done.

[jimnotgym]

> You misunderstand.

Nice, start with an insult!

> they don't have to navigate around that pesky 4th Amendment.

They got around that in the UK already by not having a 4th Amendment...or indeed a written constitution.

> They do it so they have a massive backlog of information,

This implies a level of competence I do not recognise in the UK government.

[kentrado]

In which universe, is that an insult? You are assuming malice.

[jimnotgym]

You told me I misunderstood the facts, and implied therfore that I was naive. It is a classic 'forum' pattern, that people accept, but they shouldn't. It is a kind of sly underhand way of calling someone dumb

[cwales95]

Can confirm as a UK citizen. Laws are seeminly never really enforced from what I've noticed.

[jimnotgym]

Indeed, look at the navel gazing as they try and work out how to ban a dog breed that is a clear hybrid of a breed that is already banned.... and therefore is banned already!

[deafpolygon]

Enforcement isn't the goal. It's to have a stick they can use to beat down people they want to target. The more sticks at their disposal, the better. And all of their rich and wealthy compatriots will avoid the brunt of this, as per usual.

[teaearlgraycold]

Why is the UK government in collapse? The same reasons as the US?

[jimnotgym]

I would say, generally, the people in power used to have a certain level of competence, even if they were despicable. They also had to act, outwardly at least, like they weren't deliberately shafting the common man.

Brexit changed all that. All that mattered was whether you believed in One True Brexit. Lots of heretics were hounded out. Behaviour didn't matter. You could say terrible things, as long as you were a BeLeaver.

Then Brexit was over. There was nothing left to believe in, but the cult were still in charge...

[LightBug1]

1000% correct ... I don't care if this non-substantive comment gets downvoted.

The above is basically why the UK is currently swirling down the shitter ...

[KaiserPro]

different.

The US government is designed to be inefficient and requires bipartisan agreement or a majority in both chambers to do stuff.

The UK government has significantly more executive powers, far more than the president, and normally has a majority to pass things that can't be done by the excutive.

the problem is that brexit and bad party leaders has been exceedingly disruptive and killed both the conservative and labour party. This is because it ripped apart the coalitions inside both parties. Suddenly the us and them was not our party and thier party, but people within the same party.

The competent have been driven out by the populists, and then they've burnt up and been replaced by the "tim, nice but dims". (populists were boris and corbyn)

Until we actually "deal" with or defuse brexit, and actually begin to structurally reform large parts of the country (education, industrial relations, health and local government to name but a few) we are going to be stuck

[nicoburns]

One might argue that the electoral system (FPTP) is a common denominator in both cases. Under another system, new parties might arise to replace to stale ideas of the old (on both the left and the right). Under FPTP, that's almost impossible to achieve.

It's a common refrain that people don't engage with politics because they feel disenfranchised. Which is perhaps unsurprising, because to a large extent they are!

[KaiserPro]

I think FPTP is a factor but not in the same way. The structure of the US system means that a president with a slim majority in one house can't do anything much. the UK has no such real problems.

In the UK you only have to win the commons (lower house) to run a government. the US you need both and the president.

[gorwell]

Populism is a response to corrupt and incompetent establishments. There's nothing competent to drive out by the time populism rears its head. It was already long gone.

[bratbag]

Populism is taking advantage of discontent to persuade people to act against their own best intrests.

That discontent can be caused be anything. As long as a demagogue can lie about it and use it to kill rights and laws to empower themselves.

[KaiserPro]

> Populism is a response to corrupt and incompetent establishments

populism is a response to discontent, nothing more, nothing less. Populists need an in. If the country thinks that the government is doing ok, or they are happy enough as they are, then populism can't spread. Populists need a cause and a scapegoat.

boris was brexit. corbyn was "enough shitting on the poor and young"

[switch007]

Our country is crumbling and people are starting to realise it’s the Tory’s fault. 13 years of Tory rule, cutting services to the bone and making themselves rich at our expense is seriously taking its toll. Councils are going bankrupt, schools are falling apart, public transport is in managed decline in a lot of areas, various sectors regularly going on strike, people can’t afford their bills, mortgages sky-rocketed, inflation is high…so many things

It’s widely accepted that Labour are a government-in-waiting.

[jjgreen]

Labour has largely supported this -- one of the originators is Lorna Woods (University of Essex) who was an advisor to Blair.

[Jigsy]

People also forget it was Labour who introduced the "Tell us your password or go to prison" law.

[switch007]

I expected the “Labour bad too” reply but that’s a different topic (not one I wholly disagree with). But it is not Labour who have been in power the past 13 years. The subject of the topic was the Government (and by extension recent governments)

[bratbag]

The question was "why is the UK government in collapse"

[HeckFeck]

Years of institutional decline and a political class that genuinely loathes the people it rules and anything good about the country they inhabit. You can put the date at 1997, 2010 or perhaps earlier depending on your political leanings.

Maybe those in power have always felt that way, but it certainly seems more pronounced in the post-9/11 surveillance and security state.

[miohtama]

Spy their own citizens

[basseed]

"scandal"