by liberal japonicus
Lots of things in this Rest of Politics interview with Kristrún Frostadóttir to comment on. The first thing that struck me was her accent. She went to grammar school in the UK and her graduate work in the US and her accent is 95% USaian. About at the 40 minute mark, Campbell asks why she has an US accent rather than a Manchester accent and she avers that ‘it’s a long story’. Anyway, lots of interesting things in it so have at it.
Interesting approach to ask for popular support for even talking about joining. Rather than have the government just decide to do so, and then potentially have the next one reverse course. (Which scenario, be it noted, they’ve already been thru.). It would seem to at least establish, outside a political campaign with numerous other factors involved, what the population thinks on this specific topic.
Call me cynical, but I don’t have much trust in what the UK population thinks anymore. Having witnessed the daily Brexit brouhaha for years does that to you. In their defense, they have been drip-fed lies forever by a rabid press corps for decades.
novakant, I understand your view on British and Brexit. Rather like my views on American voters and Trump actually. But I would note two things.
First, in both those cases voters got a hefty doses of outside (Russian?) propaganda in the run-up to those particular elections. It seems unlikely that this will happen in this case. (Although that may be naive of me.)
And second, in this case we’re talking about Icelandic voters. Unless you are down on all voters everywhere, you’d need to make a case against this particular electorate to be convincing.
people are people so why should it be one group is smarter electorally ?
I can’t understand
what makes Iceland
Join with other lands
Help me understand
Alienating works less well in a country with so few people that they can have an annual meeting in a single location already in use in the Middle Ages and whose last civil war happened 800 years ago over a topic of no current local interest. I very much doubt one could get them into killing each other again over the privilege to become the viceroy of a foreign authoritarian ruler. His Orangeness has already made clear that he would not accept a local puppet but would install a crony of his own with no local ties.
On the other hand, if someone got his hands on the secret recipe for the stuff all the Icelandic media producers must be smoking constantly, all bets are off.
By chance just reading this which fits with the crony viceroy remark in my previous comment:
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-venezuela-colony-billions-oil-resources-military-rubio
Thanks for sharing that LJ. First time I’ve heard her speak at length and I was impressed. She seems genuine. All our politicians could learn from her approach. Engage and respect those with different opinions, don’t call them “deplorables,” etc., don’t buy the party line hook line and sinker, ask questions, challenge policy that doesn’t work, be pragmatic. Run someone that resembles her (please!) Democrats, not Harris or Newsom. And same for the Republicans. I know, I know, but one can dream.
I would like to know more about her interactions that helped her be more open minded. It sounded to me that some of those occurred in grad school in the US (a bit surprising to me if true). But maybe it was her exposure while working for banks?
They let her “red lines” on EU membership go more or less unexplored. I think those are mainly fisheries and sovereignty. I would have liked another hour on sovereignty alone just to hear her thoughts vs. the technocrat angle I’d expect to hear from Stewart. For all those lamenting Brexit, it did free the UK to chart its own course (YMMV on how that is going), and that is worth (IMHO) a bit of GDP.
The accent is interesting, but looks like she spent more time in the US and only 18 months in the UK for grammar school.
I found it interesting that Stewart after hearing Frostadottir’s comments about listening and respecting others went into “democracy vs. populism.” IMO, that is typically used by the left to delegitimize anyone that wins elections and doesn’t think like them. Stewart, though I understand nominally conservative, appears to use it the same way. In the context of commenting on how devolution could help connect with ordinary people, he lamented that local politicians often aren’t smart, sophisticated and internationally aware. Yes, only those technocrats should rule the local council! A bit of contrast with Frostadottir’s stated respect of the common person. But, if I’m being generous to Stewart, not many people are as smart, sophisticated and internationally aware as Frostadottir.
It is generally true that people’s accents get set during puberty, though 18 months may have been too short to do so.
About democracy vs populism, I suspect that populism, being attached to the current politicians who I don’t need to name, is going to be a taboo word. I’ve gone on from time to time on the point that anarchist/anarchism shouldn’t really be as much of a pejorative as it is, but them’s the breaks.
Fixed that for you. Because I have met a fair nunber of smart, sophisticated, and internationally aware people. As smart as she is? Hard to tell from just what I’ve seen. But way smarter than most politicians anyway. And more internationally aware, too.
Admittedly, my personal sample may be skewed. Probably is, to some extent. But still, I think it’s fair to say that, in any given country, there are at least as many of those people as there are politicians. An interesting topic for research might be why so few of them seem to go into politics. At any level. Perhaps Ms Frostadottir might have some thoughts on that.
It’s quite funny to see someone call a maverick like Rory Stewart a technocrat! He’s more of a throwback to an age when eccentric (if highly intelligent) members of the British upper classes tried on various different careers (including running parts of the world they happened to be interested in).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rory_Stewart
GftNC, I don’t think Stewart is a technocrat himself at all. He is a very, very interesting person that is (obviously) hard to pin down. I was talking specifically about his devolution comment. I don’t remember him arguing the technocrat angle in favor of remain or since.
I think your comment about him being a throwback in that eccentric, have all sorts of interests way is spot on.
My wife’s observation about Rory Stewart was that she thought Wallace and Grommit was totally unrealistic until she saw Stewart and realized there were people who looked like that…
LOL!
Your wife is spot on. Some women even seem to fancy him, though.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3596156-To-quite-fancy-Rory-Stewart
Must be some weird English thing.