6 May

Both the US and UK are prey to destructive libertarian (‘freedom’) politics. I reckon the way they’re structured helps explain why. If you look at the electoral regions in both the UK and US, there are so many of them. The US has its 50 States and over 89,000(!) local government bodies (and elected officials in areas we don’t have elections like the judiciary), and the UK has hundreds of parishes, wards, boroughs etc. (no States). Australia of course has only the 8. It’s pretty obvious when you look at the maps that the US and UK have a lot of little islands of contested territory. Lots of tribes with their own powerful self-interests. Australia’s very few huge States on the other hand are mostly arbitrary lines on a map, with no real connection to the localities where people live. I think that unifies us much more easily, there’s not the same passionate territorial politics.