Your net is no longer neutral buddy!

[pErvinalia]

That's the natural state of free market capitalism, despite what its acolytes would tell you. Once a company gets ahead and stays ahead, barring any disasters, it just snowballs from there. And at that point they can own the political system, as they do in the US. Its a shame more US citizens can't get outside of their bubble and look at the US from without.

[Scot Dutchy]

Very few here watch streaming channels on internet as the cable companies provide them. No speed or data problems.

[Scot Dutchy]

That's the natural state of free market capitalism, despite what its acolytes would tell you. Once a company gets ahead and stays ahead, barring any disasters, it just snowballs from there. And at that point they can own the political system, as they do in the US. Its a shame more US citizens can't get outside of their bubble and look at the US from without.

That goes for many countries; looking in from outside. If the Brits could have done that there would be no Brexit. One thing you learn very quickly living outside where you have come from; its short comings and myths.

[Rum]

Marx recognised the problem for capitalism and wrote extensively about its 'internal contradictions'.

Ironically it is the historically left leaning liberal democracies of Europe (and in particular the UK) who have strong anti-monopoly legislation which is set up to avoid such scenarios.

[Scot Dutchy]

The UK left leaning? UK is a) definitely not liberal (that bloody definition) b) has never been a democracy.

[pErvinalia]

When the opposition leader is openly a socialist, then I think it's fairly safe to call the UK left leaning.

[Svartalf]

on the contrary, the tories are dominant, and they are rather far to the right...

[Rum]

All true, but we have had governments that were VERY left leaning. Post WW2 of course when the welfare state was set up. Harold Wilson's government contained members who had not long been communist party members, so did Callaghan. Even Blair had the left wing to contend with - which he admittedly 'saw off'.

And Scot - don't post blatant lies. The UK is of course a democracy. It may not be one you like - and of course far inferior to the system you have in the Netherlands - but it is a democracy.

[Hermit]

When the opposition leader is openly a socialist, then I think it's fairly safe to call the UK left leaning.

When the opposition leader is occupying the role of the loyal opposition while the conservatives are in government, cutting social services, instituting austerity budgets and selling the assets of the government owned hospitals and getting away with it, the UK is definitely not left leaning.

[Rum]

Odd how a notion taken out of context gets blown up here.

The 'left leaning' comment above was about the apparent contradiction of 'left leaning' European democracies having stronger anti-monopoly institutions than the USA where monopolies tend to rule the roost.

The Competition Act 1998 prohibits a number of activities by firms, including:

The formation and operation of cartels.

The abuse of a firm’s dominant position on a national or local level.

Concerted practice, such as firms colluding instead of competing. For example:

Fixing price, such as a number of book publishers fixing the minimum resale price of books sold by separate book stores, or raising price together, or fixing output.

Fixing terms of business, such as agreeing to the same delivery times or terms of payment.

‘Carving up’ a market, which means that firms agree to split up a market and not compete in the different sectors of the market.

The Enterprise Act 2002
This Act amended the Competition Act and strengthened the power of the regulators, especially in terms of detecting and punishing abuse of market dominance and cartel-like behaviour.

[Scot Dutchy]

All true, but we have had governments that were VERY left leaning. Post WW2 of course when the welfare state was set up. Harold Wilson's government contained members who had not long been communist party members, so did Callaghan. Even Blair had the left wing to contend with - which he admittedly 'saw off'.

And Scot - don't post blatant lies. The UK is of course a democracy. It may not be one you like - and of course far inferior to the system you have in the Netherlands - but it is a democracy.

Does all votes in the UK have the same weight? No. Therefore no democracy. Is there gerrymandering? Yes. Therefore no democracy.
Does the government represent the majority of the electorate? No. Almost no one as ruled with a clear majority. Even in the Labour landslide in 1945 did labour get 47% of the vote. In 1951 Labour had more of the popular vote but lost.

The claim is that the UK has a "parliamentary" democracy. Which in itself is an oxymoron.

[Rum]

All true, but we have had governments that were VERY left leaning. Post WW2 of course when the welfare state was set up. Harold Wilson's government contained members who had not long been communist party members, so did Callaghan. Even Blair had the left wing to contend with - which he admittedly 'saw off'.

And Scot - don't post blatant lies. The UK is of course a democracy. It may not be one you like - and of course far inferior to the system you have in the Netherlands - but it is a democracy.

Does all votes in the UK have the same weight? No. Therefore no democracy. Is there gerrymandering? Yes. Therefore no democracy.
Does the government represent the majority of the electorate? No. Almost no one as ruled with a clear majority. Even in the Labour landslide in 1945 did labour get 47% of the vote. In 1951 Labour had more of the popular vote but lost.

The claim is that the UK has a "parliamentary" democracy. Which in itself is an oxymoron.

Your prejudice, based on your experience of being bullied as a kid I assume really skews your world view doesn't it?

In terms of a widely agreed set of criteria, given that most democracies work slightly differently the UK scores 8.53 out of 10. The Netherlands 8.89.

Putting that into context the USA scores 7.98, Italy 7.98 and France 7.8.

There are numerous links if you search for 'democracy scores'.

[Scot Dutchy]

Britain is nowhere by any stretch of the imagination a democracy. I dont know where you cherry picked those results as all the tables I find the usual six are top: the Scandinavian countries, Switzerland and the Netherlands. The UK is roughly in the bottom half of the top 20.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Ranking

But as you say there is plenty of (biased) data to choose from. The Economist is a prime example.

The Democracy Index is an index compiled by the UK-based company the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) that intends to measure the state of democracy in 167 countries, of which 166 are sovereign states and 165 are UN member states.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

This is the one your using is it not. The UK is a "FULL" democracy!!!! Nice bit of tweaking. With countries like Belgium and France as flawed democracies.

Please.

[pErvinalia]

When the opposition leader is openly a socialist, then I think it's fairly safe to call the UK left leaning.

When the opposition leader is occupying the role of the loyal opposition while the conservatives are in government, cutting social services, instituting austerity budgets and selling the assets of the government owned hospitals and getting away with it, the UK is definitely not left leaning.

Well in a plurality, that's what you get. The same here. It's not like half the country is left and the other half right. Most people are in the centre and swing around depending on what handout they get at a particular election, or how scared they are of brown people. But when you survey the voting public outside of elections, they usually support policies that people like Corbyn, Sanders and The Greens here in Australia have. So I think most people are more left than what they end up being scared/bribed into voting for.

[pErvinalia]

All true, but we have had governments that were VERY left leaning. Post WW2 of course when the welfare state was set up. Harold Wilson's government contained members who had not long been communist party members, so did Callaghan. Even Blair had the left wing to contend with - which he admittedly 'saw off'.

And Scot - don't post blatant lies. The UK is of course a democracy. It may not be one you like - and of course far inferior to the system you have in the Netherlands - but it is a democracy.

Does all votes in the UK have the same weight? No. Therefore no democracy.

Who says? Where's your definition that backs this up?

Does the government represent the majority of the electorate? No.

Neither does the Netherlands, unless you know what the roughly 20% of people who don't vote would have voted for. Not to mention that your government is a coalition usually, so it's almost never what the majority voted for.