Hacker News Reader

Comment by lifeisstillgood | Hacker News Reader

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51959

Petition to force a debate on Tempora in UK parliament Has 1500 signatures

I signed a petition that triggered a debate. Wrote to my MP and asked him to attend and put my point across. He wrote back to say that he stood by the government decision and encouraged me to read the transcript.

I read the transcript, it was in a side room and at the end the Minister for the department in question said they would take the minutes back to the department for review.

Which I am sure they'll just put in a pending tray as the whole thing was a case of going through the motions.

We need to decentralise, devolve countries into smaller units. England split into 7 would be far less of a threat to its countrymen and have the nimble ability to innovate of a local needs.

There must be reasons splitting up your country into 7 isn't the best idea

There are pro's and con's in both choices. However I believe that over the course of my lifetime we'll need a fundamental change in the way we are governed if we are to progress as a race.

The growing rich poor divide and lack of social mobility seem like a backward step.

Is 7 an arbitrary number made up on the spot or is there some logic behind this?

Its taken from a BBC article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27731725

It seems to work well for Nordic countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_countries#Demographics

> We need to decentralise, devolve countries into smaller units. England split into 7 would be far less of a threat to its countrymen and have the nimble ability to innovate of a local needs.

Well actually, a party in the UK which has been gaining traction recently, for all the wrong reasons, might want this as well. UKIP. They want a Swiss-style direct democracy where all counties within the UK become 'states' or 'cantons'. Regardless of your stance of UKIPs immigration policy, I'm very much looking forward to them implementing this, if they did win the upcoming elections.

edit: However, they have terrible nationalistic policies such as "Teach children positive messages and pride in their country. We want to unite through better integration".

For non-UK voters, UKIP is the middle-class racist party. Not going as far as neo-fascist parties like BNP, but happily taking votes away from the Right wing of the Conservatives by pushing a isolationist, return to glory days agenda.

They have no seats at Westminster but their leader is very telegenic and their message apparently popular at the "mid-term" elections. They are now expecting to win a few seats and are rapidly chucking out people and policies that are too dodgy to be allowed onto newspapers or TV.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com