Interesting Links for 29-06-2024

[andrewducker]

1. Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought

(tags:thinking language psychology )

2. Ten Years to Save the West, by Liz Truss (a review)

(tags:politics UK conservatives incompetence review )

3. Aggregating Predictions for the General Election

(tags:UK elections )

Comments

[calimac]

2) Regarding the choice of Truss to be party leader, I wrote at the time of that election, "If it were up to the MPs, or the general voters, the choice would surely be Sunak, who seems slightly less batty. But it's up to the party activists, who probably prefer Truss for the same reason."

[bens_dad]

I still want the next government to send Truss and her Chancellor a bill for £50 billion, since they ignored the required official advice before they trashed the economy.
I am not expecting them to pay it. but it would be on the national books as an asset to put against the national debt. Yes, it would be written down (accounted as unlikely to be repayed) but the market should adjust our credit rating accordingly.

2)

[danieldwilliam]

The Tory Party membership is quite small and narrow I think. Perhaps not a good reflection of a typical British voter who is sympathetic to the centre-right.

Re: 2)

[andrewducker]

Absolutely.

I do think that there is a very strange idea in this country that political parties are something that happen to you, rather than a way that you try and influence the way your country works.

Re: 2)

[danieldwilliam]

Membership of political parties in the UK used to be measured in the millions.

Re: 2)

[andrewducker]

Yeah.

And I think might do again, if people saw them as something they could actually influence and take part in.

Rather than something that existed purely to suggest things to politicians who would then do their own thing.

I remember an American being aghast that in the UK people paid to join political parties, which indicated a very different idea about what political parties are.