Interesting Links for 09-01-2018

[andrewducker]

On The Turing Completeness of PowerPoint

(tags: video funny powerpoint computers )

Chris Grayling's 27 Seconds as Conservative Party Chairman

(tags: conservatives fail viaSwampers )

Donald Trump's tweets aren't random - he's live-tweeting his favourite tv

(tags: tv politics usa twitter )

The couple who got engaged and married on the same day

(tags: marriage )

The plummeting Conservative membership makes the party ripe for entryism

(tags: Conservatives funny politics )

How to argue, in eight easy steps

(tags: argument conversation advice )

Lemurs mob BBC News reporter

(tags: video cute bbc )

The Omnicopter, A Super Agile Omni-Directional Drone That Can Play Catch With a Ball

(tags: drone video )

Goodbye iPod, and Thanks for All the Tunes

(tags: music apple )

Is everything Johann Hari knows about depression wrong?

(tags: depression OhForFucksSake johannhari mentalhealth psychology )

Plans unveiled for new Northern Forest from Liverpool to Hull

(tags: forests trees nature uk )

Beginner's guide to longevity research

(tags: longevity lifespan research )

The reshuffle that wasn't: May blows it again

(tags: politics conservatives fail )

7 articles that are basically free therapy

(tags: advice life relationships )

Ibuprofen alters human testicular physiology

(tags: sex drugs )

Iran Bans English in Primary Schools

(tags: english iran )

Jeremy Corbyn insists UK cannot remain in single market after Brexit

(tags: UK Europe labour )

China wants an orderly exit from Bitcoin mining

(tags: bitcoin china )

Tory MSPs back call for Scottish Parliament to reject UK Brexit Bill

(tags: scotland uk europe politics )

A 430-Year-Old World Map, Taking Up 60 Square Feet

Link to a zoomable version: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~303661~90074314:Composite--Tavola-1-60---Map-of-the
(tags: maps history )

Swallowable sensors reveal mysteries of human gut health

(tags: bodies )

New insights into lifetime personality change

(tags: personality age psychology )

Women more likely to suffer winter depression and mood changes

(tags: women depression winter sad )

Comments

[jack]

I hadn't realised how pervasive the "refuse to be shuffled" thing had been. I didn't think it worked like that.

[andrewducker]

I'm not sure it ever has before.

But I think May is having to balance sacking incompetent people against them rebelling and possibly unseating her.

[calimac]

I realize from this that I'm unclear on the actual power relationships here. Everything I've read of recent UK political history suggests PMs have unfettered actual power to sack ministers, although requesting their resignation is usually enough. (As you're pointing out, it unusually was not enough here.)

On the other hand, the legal position is that the PM is merely the chair-person of cabinet, "first among equals," and not their superior officer. I'm not sure how these two facts correlate. Sometime around the Thatcher or Blair days, people started writing about the "presidential" model of PM leadership. The US President does have unquestioned legal power to sack various high officers including Cabinet (although others whom he appoints become independent on appointment), and the one attempt made by Congress to put a curb on that power failed rather spectacularly.

[danieldwilliam]

In modern times, in practice, the Prime Minister would expect unfettered de jure power to appoint the Cabinet. They are probably in a technical legal sense advising the Queen on the apppointment of her ministers but the accepted constitutional position is that the Prime Minister appoints the Cabinet.

What is at stake here is that the Prime Minister is only PM if they can command a majority in the House of Commons and in practice that means being leader of the largest party.

May is in a weak position. Her party is very, very split over Europe. It's also split over other policy areas. Like any broad church party it has a left-wing and a right-wing. It's also split over issues of personality and electoral strategy. Many Tories love Boris Johnson. Many Tories think he's a vacuous, power-grabbing oik who's ambition far exceeds both his actual abilities and any concept he might have of loyalty to friends, to party or to country.

Externally the Tories lost the last election (sort of) and are in real danger of losing the next election. The next election is not due for about 4 1/2 years but *could* happen any time. The situations that cause an early election are likely to damage the Conservative Party very, very badly because they are disorderly and involve at least some internal rebellion.

May gets the blame for the election result in May where they went from a 20% polling lead and looking at 100-200 seat majority to losing seats and their majority and having to do a deal with the DUP. She's damaged. She's also a lukewarm Remainer and not entirely trusted by either side of the European split.

The rules for the Conservative Party leadership are that about 30-40 sitting MP's can trigger a leadership election by writing to the Chair of the Parliamentary Conservative Party expressing No Confidence. There is a vote on the No Confidence motion. If passed Conservative MP's vote on a short list for the leadership election using run off voting until there are two candidates. These are put in front of the current membership of the Party

So the conversation is probably going something like this

May to current Secretary of State for X: I'd like you to stop being Secretary of State for X

SoS4X: I don't want to stop and if you sack me I'll trigger a) a backbench rebellion on issue X, b) a backbench rebellion on Europe (for or against) c) a leadership challenge, d) I'll just make your life miserable or e) I'll defect to the Lib Dems or UKIP.

May: Okay then, you can stay as Secretary of State for X.

Usually the response would be May: Well, off you go then, let me know how it goes, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

That is usually the response because usually the party is more unified and the PM has just won an election or is just about to win one.

[mountainkiss]

May isn't a Remainer any more. She takes inordinately seriously the mandate of the referendum.

[danieldwilliam]

I agree that May takes the Brexit vote seriously.

However, I think in this context (both the internal Tory split and the national split) it is only your position before the vote that counts. If you were for staying in the EU before the vote you are a Remainer and shall always be a Remainer.

Which is where May's problems here begin - she isn't trusted by either camp.

[mountainkiss]

Fair enough, although I do think it's important not to refer to her as a Remainer because it's so misleading. Nothing about her leadership can be interpreted through that lens.

[calimac]

"Remainer" is actually best seen as an obsolete term these days, more useful in discussing a politician's past history or their general mental cast than their current position, rather like using "appeaser" after the outbreak of WW2. There were no more appeasers, but it was sometimes still useful in analyzing what a person would do next, e.g. if they sought a negotiated peace.

Similarly, what today are sometimes called "Remainers" are actually "Overturners," as in they wish to overturn the Referendum. That's a more extreme position than having opposed the Referendum at the time, and should be judged separately. A Remainer then might be an Overturner now, but has not changed position if they accept the Referendum results, because that was then and this is now. There might be a correlation between Remainers-then and Soft Exiters-now, and that's where it's useful to identify who was then a Remainer.

[danieldwilliam]

Not refering to her as a Remainer is to give her a different ideological label and one that attempts to change the national discourse from Brexit to post-Brexit.

It allows the conversation to move on from the question of EU membership.

Which is fine, if that is what one wants to do, but if one wants the UK to remain or rejoin the EU then Remainers must remain Remainers until Brexiteers wonder off to do something else.

[mountainkiss]

She is not a Remainer. She is a whole-hearted Brexiteer and will continue to be one. Nothing about her wants to stay in the European Union. What she was before the referendum is not relevant any more.

[calimac]

All you say is true, but it's been true before without producing this kind of a result. Major was a weak PM of a split party in a precarious electoral situation, but I don't recall him having any difficulty shaping his own Cabinet.

[calimac]

In further thought:

Most of what you say is things I already know. Which suggests that you're not addressing what's really puzzling me, which in turn suggests that I may not have phrased my question clearly enough.

For instance, I know why a PM might not want to sack a troublesome minister, and indeed considered putting a discussion of that in my original comment, but what I can't follow is why, having decided to sack them anyway, a PM would change their minds on having this pointed out. Any experienced politician would have weighed this in the balance already.

I guess what I mean is that I don't need to know why things are as they are so much as why they're different than they were on previous occasions when they've been as they are.

[danieldwilliam]

I think the new bit of information available to May yesterday is that many Cabinet members are actually willing and able to be bloody minded.

The Tories have a long history of hanging together to avoid hanging separately. They are usually able to agree to stay in power doing nothing when they are unable to agree what they want to do.

However, this time they are in the middle of a national crisis, something has to be done and they still can't agree what to do.

[calimac]

That is so unanswering of my question that I wish I hadn't read it. It's like answering "Why did Brexit pass?" with "Because more people voted for it than against it."

[danieldwilliam]

I think what you are missing here is that the fundamental nature of the Tory Party is a club for the exercising of power by the Tory Party.

Individual Tories will scheme and machinate, plot and backstab to get power for themselves up to, but almost never beyond, the point where they risk damaging the Party's electoral performance or worse, splitting the Party.

What I think is perhaps going on here is that several individual Tories have told their own Prime Minister that they are willing and able to risk the ruination of the Tory Party if they don't get their own way. That may not have happened since the Corn Laws.

[calimac]

Again, you're patiently explaining what I already know, and ignoring my question. Are you trolling me?

[danieldwilliam]

It doesn't usually but at the moment I think there are too many factional fights being barely kept at a simmer that any reasonably senior Tory could claim that sacking them would cause a leadership contest.

Unless you are Justine Greening.

[mountainkiss]

Why is going from Education to DWP considered a demotion? The latter is by far the bigger Department.

[alithea]

More like a poison chalice, I would have thought!

[danieldwilliam]

I think she didn't *want* to go.

[mountainkiss]

You're right, sorry. Should have been clearer. I'm referring to a slightly different point, which is that the press have been referring to it as a demotion.

[danieldwilliam]

I guess because it suits the interests of the press to present the simple and dramatic story of hurt pride rather than the more nuanced one of really not wanting a particular role.

[mountainkiss]

Gotcha. Though it seems to lack face validity to a high degree.

[danieldwilliam]

Face validity?

[mountainkiss]

My original point - that the narrative of demotion lacks credibility because of the relative sizes of the two briefs.