this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2025
122 points (100.0% liked)

UK Politics

3590 readers
427 users here now

General Discussion for politics in the UK.
Please don't post to both !uk_politics@feddit.uk and !unitedkingdom@feddit.uk .
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.

Posts should be related to UK-centric politics, and should be either a link to a reputable news source for news, or a text post on this community.

Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.

If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread. (These things should be publicly discussed)

Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.

Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.

!ukpolitics@lemm.ee appears to have vanished! We can still see cached content from this link, but goodbye I guess! :'(

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
tom@feddit.uk
GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk
flamingos@feddit.uk
frankPodmore@slrpnk.net
122
“My Party Today Would Not Create the NHS”: Labour MP Condemns Government Refusal to Look at ‘Who Owns Our Water’ (bylinetimes.com)
submitted 3 days ago by dwazou@lemm.ee to c/uk_politics@feddit.uk
17 comments fedilink hide all child comments
top 17 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] thetreesaysbark@sh.itjust.works 19 points 3 days ago (2 children)

It's almost as if neither of the parties that will win through FPTP (first past the post) care about the people, and care more for satisfying the rich.

Due to FPTP, I can only vote labour as for my views they're the slightly lesser of two terrible parties.

At the same time, neither of the parties that benefit from FPTP will think about changing it and even if they did most of the population would fall for the propaganda machine anyway (see Brexit and decades of awful Tory government / the nonsense that the right are spewing out but gaining popularity)

[–] Fluke@lemm.ee 6 points 3 days ago

I'm telling you, that kind of level of governmental reform is only possible by some great tumultuous event, like, for example, the houses of parliament burning completely to the ground.

It wouldn't take much, the place is a tinderbox. For arguments sake, if a crowd thousands strong surrounded the place and were all throwing fireworks at it, they couldn't arrest everyone.

There are better ways, but the points still stand.

[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

If Labour wants to stay in power for the next election, they sure as hell better bring about proportional representation, because with the rise of the everything right now, this might be it for them

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

That's the world we're living in now. We can barely get governments to consider stopping doing big stupid things like daylight savings time, let alone set any grand expensive projects in motion.

It's horrible. None of the great projects governents have set up in the past like railway systems or sewers would be made in today's political climate.

[–] ohulancutash@feddit.uk 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The railway network was opened between 1825 and 1899, built by over 140 private companies. This meant that even tiny villages might have 2 or even more stations, each owned by a different company. This redundancy was a major factor in the closure of stations from 1923 (when the companies were forced to amalgamate into 4 big companies by government, after a brief nationalisation during the war) to the 1980s.

The first major route opened since 1899 was HS1 from 2003-7. Again this was built privately (the Channel Tunnel Act 1987 forbidding any public subsidy to the Channel Tunnel).

[–] HumanPenguin@feddit.uk 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Just as a correction. Railways was set up as a privrate enterprise then nationalised. But unlike most of the rest the rail system was fairly national before gov involvement.

Sewers sorta. They were started as city states long before democracy was a thing iE most cities had basic systems in feudal times. But roll out to rural villages etc was def modern gov.

Electrical grid much the same but started in the 1900s. Privrate city systems some run by local gov some entirly privrate. Standardisation and national unification was def gov in 1938.

Same with the gas grid. A mix of privrate and city run town gas systems from mid 1800s linked and nationalised in 1949. (PS worked for British gas during the privatisation process)

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

thank you for the corrections.

[–] HumanPenguin@feddit.uk 1 points 3 days ago (2 children)

big stupid things like daylight savings time,

In part because the population dose not agree on doing so.

Its been discussed in parliment several times over the decades. Each time the MPs realise voting to end it is voting for school children walking home in the dark through most of winter. So reject it.

[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 2 points 3 days ago (2 children)

That makes no sense. In Summer sunset is later than 8pm - how is removing BST going to wind that all the way back to 3pm?

[–] HumanPenguin@feddit.uk 2 points 2 days ago

You seems to fail to see how days work. Winter is much shorter days due to the way the earth is tipped. This has a much more drematic effect in other parts of the nation. Mainly north.

[–] HumanPenguin@feddit.uk 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Clocks go back in winter. Where parts of the UK with the shortest days get dark in the early pm. So we make bst 4pm hit at 3pm In winter ensuring children are home before dark.. As the days get longer in summer we set it forward again to stop us haveing sunlight at 11pm in the part ofvthe UK with the longest days.

Remember before the railways standardised UK time in the 1800. Different cities set clocks to match their own midday. When the UK standardised to allow tail times to be managed. The whole nation using the same clock/time created odd issues with day time at the extreams.

[–] mindlesscrollyparrot@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Removing British Summer Time would leave GMT unchanged, so the clocks would be the same in Winter as they are now.

[–] HumanPenguin@feddit.uk 1 points 2 days ago

Leaving parts of the nation dark before 3pm in the middle of winter.

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

ok. Can you imagine any government in the g20 doing something on the scale of implementing daylight savings today?

[–] HumanPenguin@feddit.uk 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Nope def not. I was not disagreeing with your point. Just the stupidity of daylight savings. As an old fart I've watched the subject come up every time. Folks rapidly realise it ain't so stupid when they realise the real reason we still do it.

Its just one of those things that makes me grin. Farmers claim cities need it urbanites think its for farmers. Yet it has always been about their kids not walking home at 3pm in the dark. Then a decade or so later the MPs forget about it and have another debate.

We have all grown so used to it we only remember the 2 annoying days a year .

[–] PennyRoyal@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 days ago

His party today is trying to destroy the NHS.

[–] discreetelite@feddit.uk 2 points 2 days ago

What a horrible state of affairs