The UK's downturn is a warning for Europe | Hacker News Reader

The UK's downturn is a warning for Europe

lemonde.fr

22 pointscirrus-clouds28 comments

The U.K. has serious problems and the article is pretty spot on about it, but the EU has their own problems the articles should be pointing at, especially the right’s relationship with Orban, a figure even more disconnected from pragmatism than the U.K. government. France itself has managed to have the last two presidential elections between _the same two people_. The fact that one of them is literally the head of the French equivalent of the National Front is just icing on the cake.

So yeah, Europe should learn lessons from what’s going on in the U.K., but there’s little evidence they are doing so.

poster seems to have... an attachment to posting UK political stories of a particular slant

https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=cirrus-clouds

thanks.

At first glance I thought you were the person who submitted the article and thanking OP for noticing your UK slant.

seems like an uptick since 2020. might be part of the larger angst people have been feeling about society during the pandemic (a trend which I personally feel has degraded the experience on here)

Seems like they are annoyed that the Conservatives can't meet the minimun standard requirements for governing a country. Seems accurate on many levels.

from the guidelines at the bottom of the page:

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics

a more on-topic place consisting almost entirely of doom-and-gloom stories about the UK would be /r/unitedkingdom

Its economics and politics, a quick scroll through your comments shows lots of commenting on topics involving economics and politics.

People who dismiss different opinions via implication of some kind of "negative vibe man" are not worthy of debate.. sorry.

A "negative vibe man" comment. A quick scroll through your comments shows lots of commenting on topics involving economics and politics. Offhand it would be easy to ascribe a "slant" to them. This is in bad faith. Please don't slander a story posted presumably in good faith.

I've never submitted a political story

commenting on others that have seems fair enough

> This is in bad faith. Please don't slander a story posted presumably in good faith.

this seems way out of line (and deeply ironic)

maybe you can point out where I slandered something?

You have multiple comments discussing economics, politics of technology, and politics generally. Just look.. they are there.

You are insinuating that this story about politics and economics should not be treated in good faith because the poster is tainted in some way via linking to their comment history. Your post on the other poster's comments seems in bad faith imo. Plus, I find "negative vibe man" comments are not ideal.

> You are insinuating that this story about politics and economics should not be treated in good faith because the poster is tainted in some way via linking to their comment history.

you really don't you see the irony here?

> Plus, I find "negative vibe man" comments are not ideal.

well the mods seemed to downweight the story, then the community flagged it (killing it all together)

it seems if anyone's out of place here it's you, not me

(tories bad!)

> you really don't you see the irony here?

You contradicted your own terms of debate trying to taint a commenter as "political" while having a history of commenting on similar items. I pointed that out as not consistent using your comments as evidence. Mildly ironic but no.

> it seems if anyone's out of place here it's you, not me

Negative vibe on isle five officer!! The very idea that technology is not adjacent to economics, politics, and demographics is silly. If the forum mods don't think that then boo!

> The very idea that technology is not adjacent to economics, politics, and demographics is silly.

maybe time to find another website to post your vaulted insights on then

>maybe time to find another website to post your vaulted insights on then

You will continue to intermittently post about politics and economics on here which judging by your comment history you do. I will also. Goodbye.

>maybe time to find another website to post your vaulted insights on then

P.S. how is this a vaulted idea or not relevant to "tech"? We are discussing a country that swims in its own pooh because the government (de-facto) controlled companies turned off or removed sensors at the beaches, misreported data, and couldn't buy chemicals at adequate levels because of Brexit. Seems like almost ALL of the issues described in the post are at the nexus of economics/politics and technology.

You can always email dang (bottom of the page) if you suspect someone is using HN for ideological battle.

What I find most strange about it is the calmness in UK media and politics. It's really like that meme with the dog in a burning room saying "it's fine".

Cost of living crippling people? NHS in emergency mode at it's quietest period? Soaring inflation? Nah, business as usual. Let's pass some laws about imitation and cancel culture. Oh and look at the Queen, isn't she marvellous? Carry on.

Why is this flagged? It's an editorial, and it certainly has a slant, but it seems to be neither lying nor dissembling.

I, for one, had no knowledge of the strikes going on in the UK, and I'm rather more plugged into politics than most.

"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics [...] unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. [...] If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Granted this is arguable in this case, but that's why I'd guess it was flagged.

UK voted to leave EU, defacto they voted to become enclave of USA.

American influence from Trumps Steve Bannons Cambridge analytica THRU american corporation Facebook led to brexit.

so it is what some americans wanted, so now they have it, so go complain to these people britain.

> UK voted to leave EU

It did not. A minority of voters voted "yes" in an advisory non-binding referendum. But this result was milked for propaganda purposes to drag the country into a downward spiral, which has been the plan all along.

Who was behind that plan?

A loose association of actors with invested interest in destroying UK and EU, with differing priorities:

    * Disaster capitalists like Jacob Rees-Mogg, who extract money from the economies being destroyed.
    * Media moguls like Rupert Murdoch, with the goal to control who is in power.
    * Corrupt politicians like Boris Johnson, who want to live large while passing taxpayers' money to their allies.
    * Oil/gas industry, for reasons that are pretty clear to everyone by now.
    * Russian government and its paid agents like Aaron Banks, who want to see EU, UK and other western powers as weak as possible.
    * Hi-tech companies like Cambridge Analytica, Palantir and Facebook, who receive huge sums from the above groups to subtly manipulate public opinion and directly affect elections.

Note that right-wing public is not on the list - there is nothing political in any of the groups' motivations (except, arguably, Russia). It's simply that they have figured out that the conservative voters are easiest to manipulate, and they continue to influence other political groups as well. In the UK they have directly manipulated Labour into electing Corbyn for leader (supposedly hoping that his extreme political position and leadership incompetence will cause the chaos; until they realised that the same result can be achieved far more easily with Johnson); in Germany they have been funding the Green party for its extreme stance on nuclear energy; and so on.

I mean, a small majority of those who turned up voted to leave, on unspecified terms.

It was crazy if you ask me but it's hard to argue it was against public sentiment.

> an advisory non-binding referendum

> this result was milked for propaganda purposes

It amazes me how this is almost never said when arguments of the type "the public has spoken", etc. appear. Whenever I bring those up, I tend to get blank stares.

Except the UK has a pending, and serious, issue with the Irish border, which is apparently peeving off Irish American voters. Biden was firing warning shots about this.

But so far there seems no practical compromise that works for UK, Ireland and the EU.

US and EU smelling blood and quite happy to exasurbate conflict inside UK for cynical reasons

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