Questions About Other Countries' Politics that You Were Too Afraid To Ask

[CumbrianLefty]

I'll start: what it would it take for the political position of Plaid Cymru to seriously improve, as occurred for the SNP?

1.5 million people wake up one day to discover that they have suddenly become fluent in Welsh.

This is an interesting one, there were those in the early days of organised Scottish Nationalism in the inter-war years who wanted the Gaelic language to be a central part of the new movement's identity despite it only actually being spoken by a small minority of people. That they lost that battle was very likely helpful to the SNP long term.

[CumbrianLefty]

Why do NUPES/Die Linke parties that hate the US for being a hypercapitalist imperalist power without government-run healthcare like Russia, a hypercapitalist imperialist power without government-run healthcare?

Knee-jerk "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"-ism. Seeing America as their enemy in the first place is a Cold War-brained cognitive bias that the dinosaurs in charge of most of these types of parties just haven't bothered trying to overcome.

I would say also that at least some seem to be under the impression that modern Russia is still the Soviet Union under Lenin.

Putin does seem to want to restore the Soviet empire, I suppose.

[CumbrianLefty]

Why did Turkey decide to lower interest rates as a result of inflation last year?

Mostly down to Erdogan's "interesting" ideas on economic matters.

[CumbrianLefty]

In relative terms, what is probably the most "clientelistic" European country, politically?

I am not an expert on all countries of course, and I am not entirely sure what you mean by "clientelistic", but what I've read about state capture and vote buying in Romania seems to trump everyone else (even Bulgaria, DPS notwithstanding).

Maybe more interesting, the most "clientelistic" Western European country - Belgium, possibly?

[CumbrianLefty]

What's the deal with the Peak District? Why is it so undeveloped despite being next to a bunch of big cities--is it just downstream effects of topography?

Well yes, its mostly fairly large hills with relatively little land that can be easily built on.

(similarly, the *actual* Chilterns and Cotswolds don't have that many houses on them either)

[CumbrianLefty]

Labour has won majorities in the past even if you eliminate all their Scottish MPs, so basically yes.

A lot of people outside the UK often don't fully appreciate how much England dwarfs everywhere else electorally speaking, Scotland is roughly the same size but has *many* fewer people.

[CumbrianLefty]

Of course, the actual Ronald Reagan was not actually a hardline market fundamentalist Nikki Haley type, but pretty much everyone who identifies as a Reagan conservative today would call Ronald Reagan a statist tankie RINO.

The way their self-proclaimed advocates have totally mythologised both Reagan and Thatcher hasn't done either the GOP or Tories much good in the long run.

[CumbrianLefty]

Yes, its the "protest vote" element of LibDem support that literally fell off a cliff post 2010 (in at least some places, it transferred pretty much wholesale to UKIP in the 2015 GE) and its the part that isn't likely to meaningfully return any time soon, the odd flurry in local by-elections notwithstanding.

[CumbrianLefty]

What way?

[CumbrianLefty]

Are there areas in Japan that consistently vote for non LDP parties? If so, what are the reasons why?

Indeed - in the old days when Japanese politics was more ideological, were there places that always voted for the Socialist and Communist parties?

[CumbrianLefty]

Though of course Tom Watson is from Kidderminster, which is at least vaguely in the same area.

[CumbrianLefty]

I mean, the Black Country has its own flag and everything