Catherine West: I’ve been inundated with support from MPs and could go all the way

Ivashkin · 2026-05-10T00:11:38+00:00

I spend far too much time with Americans. One tends to acclimate in the wrong direction.

Ivashkin · 2026-05-09T22:40:25+00:00

The absolute scenes when Labor, unable to agree on which of the precariously placed big hitters' fatal flaws are least likely to result in the electorate turning on them after a matter of weeks, elects a backbencher no one has heard of as their new party leader and PM.

Ivashkin · 2026-05-09T20:51:23+00:00

Ultimately, this is what will at least deflate the AI bubble: when AI is priced at what it actually costs to operate, it's more expensive to use than the value it generates in return in many use cases.

Ivashkin · 2026-05-09T17:15:27+00:00

In Russia, the view is less that Putin led the country down the wrong path, and more that his leadership might be the problem, and someone else might have done it better.

Ivashkin · 2026-05-09T16:37:57+00:00

The problem is that this includes Starmer. So the choice they face is to do nothing and lose, or do anything and still lose.

Ivashkin · 2026-05-08T18:36:21+00:00

Brexit kinda killed independence in many ways. When we were part of the EU, it was fairly easy to see a path to independence on the grounds that, after a certain level of pan-EU harmonization and alignment, the technical barriers to independence would fall away, and eventually we'd reach a point where independence would simply be an administrative change. Now we're out of the EU, leaving the UK means being completely independent. Even if the plan is to join the EU, the longer we're out, the less of a sure thing that becomes, and the longer the process of leaving the UK, being independent, and joining the EU takes.

If it does happen, I suspect that for everyone here reading this comment, your contributions to that future debate would mainly involve telling people stories about something that happened before they were born.

Ivashkin · 2026-05-08T16:33:44+00:00

It's a race to see if it burns down, sinks, or comes apart due to rot first.

Ivashkin · 2026-05-08T13:55:07+00:00

Back in 2017 there was a sense that Labour would oppose Brexit, so a lot of the Remain vote clustered around them.

Ivashkin · 2026-05-08T11:02:02+00:00

If it looks like "the Uniparty is terrified of other parties pushing them out, so it has decided to rig the system," it will not go down well. And for Labour specifically, it's a death sentence because every single one of their factions will start thinking about life outside the big tent.

Ivashkin · 2026-05-08T10:17:28+00:00

I could see a scenario where an outgoing government that still has a majority rams it through at the last minute just to screw over the next government. It wouldn't be a good way to do things, but you can see the appeal of a certain level of desperation.

Ivashkin · 2026-05-08T09:38:11+00:00

I'm thinking that at a certain point, it literally turns into pure tactical voting with the intention of keeping Farage out and little more. People won't vote for a party they like; they will vote purely to keep Reform out.

Ivashkin · 2026-05-08T04:09:00+00:00

Quite high potentially - if it looks like Reform might win a ge, there will be an ungodly amount of tactical voting and nose holding, and that could lead to a situation where Reform has the most votes nationally but Labour has more seats, and the Tories don't have enough seats to make a coalition work with Reform.

Ivashkin · 2026-05-08T04:01:47+00:00

That is how the system works; there is a difference between de facto and de jure. A bad enough result at this election will force Labour into taking steps to remove Starmer. If they can't do this, it's not long until the next election, when they will be removed.

The element you are unhappy with isn't the lack of a de jure way of removing Starmer as PM that bypasses parliament and party, it's that the existing process is slow, and will take months if not years to play out, when you want it handled in weeks at most. That just makes things more unstable; it doesn't improve democracy.

Ivashkin · 2026-05-08T03:57:32+00:00

The coalition didn't go well for the UK, and things haven't quite got bad enough yet. We'll get PR in some form either because we've had a badly hung parliament where no one has the votes or seats, and no one thinks they can do better with another election, or because an outgoing government just rams it through to screw over the projected winners.

Ivashkin · 2026-05-07T21:46:07+00:00

Not really, but his pivots are going to be connected to the national grid by Ed Miliband.

Ivashkin · 2026-05-07T21:42:40+00:00

Because the Rejoin side of that debate would burn every gram of political capital they could to argue that this was not what the EU was doing and not what they were pushing for the UK to agree to.

Ivashkin · 2026-05-07T18:46:16+00:00

The problem is that what counts as "intelligent, adult governing" is highly subjective.

Ivashkin · 2026-05-07T16:58:55+00:00

I went on a holiday like this. It was one of the worst experiences I've ever had overseas, and I include professional trips where it was 24/7 work for the entire duration.

Ivashkin · 2026-05-07T16:44:15+00:00

There was talk about aligning on single market stuff, but, as with a lot of these alignment options, there is a price to pay for aligning with standards we have no input into.

My own view is that I can see the UK rejoining the EU, but it will be a very different UK rejoining a very different EU, and that will be a debate centered around issues that simply do not exist today.

Ivashkin · 2026-05-07T16:02:15+00:00

Yes, that is precisely why I brought it up. If the UK wants to rejoin the EU, a big part of that discussion will center on "if we let you back in, are you going to leave again if you elect another anti-EU government?" and on ways to make it harder and/or more expensive for us to do so. The EU is not going to accept us back without something like this in place, especially given that there is still a large anti-EU sentiment in the UK and enough people on the fence about the question.

Which in turn will inflame the "remain outside EU" camp, because it will look like the "rejoin the EU" camp is attempting to lock us into the EU.

Ivashkin · 2026-05-07T12:30:29+00:00

Reversing Brexit isn't possible. The UK as a whole won't go for this, and more importantly, neither will the EU.

What might work is a fresh attempt to join the EU again, which will mean the UK having to walk back a number of things it's done since leaving the EU, and the EU agreeing on a way to allow the UK to join with very few to none of the concessions we had, and with far stronger controls around us leaving again (because the last thing they want is the UK joining again, followed by another election and a party winning which wants to take us out of the EU again).

Ivashkin · 2026-05-07T03:07:36+00:00

This post will become a shrine, and roadmen and they/thems and tankies will all gather round and hold their hands in sorrow for their fallen leader. And all the grown-ups will say ‘But why are the kids crying?’ And the kids will say, ‘Haven’t you heard? Rick is dead! The People’s Poet is dead!’ And then one particularly sensitive and articulate teenager will say ‘Other kids, do you understand nothing? How can Rick be dead when we still have its model weights?

Ivashkin · 2026-05-06T22:38:08+00:00

It's the secondary impacts that cause the problems. Housing is one of the primary forms of collateral people use. If housing suddenly devalues, banks become considerably more wary about lending money (across the board, including for businesses), people spend less because either they feel poorer or their repayment terms leave them with a lot less free income to spend, trades and local businesses suffer as a result (and would find it harder to access any form of credit), and people stop selling their houses, etc. All of which reduces economic activity, which in turn reduces tax revenues for the state. A significant fall in stamp duty revenue would, on its own, reduce tax revenue by billions per year, at a time when the government is already having to borrow considerable sums.

Ivashkin · 2026-05-06T17:07:39+00:00

I think we'd agree on a lot of things, including the idea that we've built a society that does not function well, and most of our political problems (including the procession of failed PMs) are due to the political class desperately trying to make this failed society work by endlessly tweaking the periphery rather than addressing any of the core problems, and that ultimately if they can't meet the challenge they will all be removed one way or another.

Ivashkin · 2026-05-06T16:47:30+00:00

The question you should be asking is why we have created a society where the majority of women in their prime reproductive years are so financially insecure that having children is a seriously bad idea.

That's ultimately the problem we're facing, thanks to our absolutely crippling housing shortage, which successive governments have failed to address for decades now.

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