General British politics discussion thread

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119573808#Comment_119573808

That's a lot less than expected. There was talk of anything up to 70-30.

What exactly it means I do not know.

i said all the way through that the polls should not have been publicised. That’s a much tighter margin that what was forecast, and may well have been close enough that Sunak would have won if Truss had not been anointed as the winner weeks ago. That undoubtedly pulled in support

Sunak should leave politics like Rory Stewart (though he has nothing like the same class)

Strazdas

I'm surprised it was so close, but there have been many suggestions that Truss is not particularly popular, even within the party.

The lack of support for her is certainly a bit ominous going forward - she wasn't the choice of the MPs either.

Nody

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119573907#Comment_119573907

That's way worse than I expected and clearly shows lack of support among the Tory party supporters as well. I'm guessing the letters will start to arrive well before Christmas and I'd be surprised if she gets through 12 months without a vote (the winter will really hit her, and more importantly the Tories, hard due to the energy crisis etc. which will trigger letters) as she lacks the popularity character of Boris nor does she have any form of competency to actually lead. Combine falling support for the Tories, upset about tax cuts from their base, inflation running away & snazy headlines about people freezing to death this winter and I think she'll struggle to put it mildly (and no amount of But EU... will work either).

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119573808#Comment_119573808

You'd have to speculate if perhaps we'll be seeing another leadership contest sooner than later. Vote of confidence anyway. Johnson had the benefit of a Personality Cult to sustain him, built over years of that famous bumbling facade. So where does Truss source this from? All she will have is her wits and ... Yeah; yikes.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119573954#Comment_119573954

There's still talk that Johnson and his supporters fancy a comeback. He obviously doesn't a toss about Truss and would be delighted to see her crash and burn. The situation around the party these days is so nuts and Trumpian that you couldn't rule anything out.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119573969#Comment_119573969

I fully expect so. Truss was very few people's first choice. She has no previous connection to the British public the way Johnson had as a columnist, MP and Mayor of London. Add to that the inherent instability resulting from pandering to the extremes and, yes, I see her premierships being as brief as it will be disappointing even for those who backed her.

Furze99

Truss in, I think those who observed that she's a female version of Boris without the charisma have got it right.

Will say anything to further her career but seems to be a tough & dirty fighter too. Mightn't be so easy to dislodge her.

Was race a factor with Sunak and the Tory party electorate? I suspect he was at a starting disadvantage there.

NI Assembly elections on the way.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119574002#Comment_119574002

His status as a billionaire was what decided it, also viewed as soft on Brexit.

He ran it close enough, the Kemi badenoch votes would have tipped it for Truss.

I would say that no one can predict what Truss will do in 6 months time. Her pronouncements during the campaign are over and done.

In reality she is a Cameron type Tory.

If she goes down the libertarian free market route, ignores energy bills crisis she will make even the Labour party electable.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119574138#Comment_119574138

Didn't think being rich was any bar with the Tory party?

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119574138#Comment_119574138

Ya the morons voting thought he was softer on Brexit than the remainer they voted for.

Can't tell if she is like Cameron or anyone else because she changes her stance every day.

pixelburp

Well if her recent comments are anything to go by WRT the current Cost of Living / Energy Crisis, she's sleep-walking into nationwide protests, riots and general civil disobedience. Her complete [a|anti]pathy towards helping the increasingly large umbrella of those struggling is going to make for a very short honeymoon period - and doesn't appear to have a single spark of wit to arrest the problem.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119573975#Comment_119573975

I was listening to James O'Brien's radio show earlier and he said there's a rumour that 11 letters are set to go in immediately for the new PM from Johnson loyalists.

retalivity

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119574308#Comment_119574308

It's ok, people just need to go on This Morning and enter a competition to ensure they dont freeze to death this winter.

https://twitter.com/RobOHanrahan/status/1566751565582589952

Brussels Sprout

Fintan O'Toole had his own oven-ready column waiting to go:

In a healthy or happy democracy, Truss doesn’t get to be prime minister, even in her own fantasies. She is Theresa May without the seriousness and Boris Johnson without the charisma — a combination of ingredients scraped by a mad chef from the bottom of a very deep barrel.

With her, the Tory Party has chosen, not to wake up to the increasingly grim realities of contemporary Britain, but to double down on the game of “let’s pretend”.

With Johnson, it was “let’s pretend it’s 1940 and he’s Winston Churchill”. With Truss, it’s “let’s pretend it’s 1980 and she’s Margaret Thatcher”. With both, it is let’s pretend that Britain’s problems were caused by the EU and that the British bulldog has now been let off the leash, ready to romp through the sunlit uplands of a new golden age.

link (Irish Times subscriber's only)

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119574308#Comment_119574308

They're not sleepwalking into anything. They simply don't care one whit and, having won three consecutive elections and governed for 12 years, they feel so secure that they're dropping the pretense of unity and compassion in favour of just openly admitting to governing for the 1%. Remember Nadine Dorries citing the donors' complaints? In any other country, that'd cause a political tsunami but it's just another day in Brexit Britain.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119574346#Comment_119574346

Parody. I refuse to believe this is a clip from a real TV show. It's an unreleased Black Mirror episode that managed to convince Phillip Scofield to send himself up.

"We are paying your energy bill for four months".

Like, that is generous, don't get me wrong but WTF is happening to that country? Warm Banks and superficial Morning TV blather shows normalising the increasing destitution of lower-income brackets. People are going to starting dying come winter - a Climate Collapse Change exacerbated season - and what? We still going to have these cutesy little names, and fun TV segments?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119574396#Comment_119574396

I think they're sleep-walking in the sense that they're betting the "poor" (which is a widening concept the more the middle-class start to worry about their own lot) don't have it in them to take to the street and start hurling shít. And that's only going to be more at risk of happening thanks to Patel changing the laws on demonstration.

Shelga

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119574422#Comment_119574422

It’s so specific too- “we’ll pay your energy bills for 4 months”? Probably because if they offer to pay them for a year, it could easily cost £10k at this rate.

Brussels Sprout

Did Priti Patel ever manage to ban political protests in the end? Will surely be relevant in the upcoming months.

retalivity

I wish it was parody, here's Good Morning Britain up to similar

https://twitter.com/SaulStaniforth/status/1566687709493592065

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119574383#Comment_119574383

He’s absolutely right. It is astonishing that she has got here. She is utterly unfit to lead

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119574512#Comment_119574512

To be fair, the male presenter looks a bit appalled by the whole conversation; WTF is that dinosaur Currie even flourishing? So can we expect people's houses to burn down now, when they try to heat the house with a bit of tinfoil?

"Most people my age Susannah have lived in houses without central heating". Well that's OK then. I guess we've hit the point where people should just stop being such softy millennials and man up.

And why in the good Christ is there a cardboard cutout of Boris Johnson in the background? Did Currie forget to hide her DIY body pillow? She does seem keen on building her own.

Our resident Bad Faith user often floats in acting superior about why Irish people talk about British politics and British concerns; but JFC it's hard to look at a neighbour who, rightly or wrongly, has been so intrinsically connected with Ireland and the Irish - and not shed a tear that its population are hitting a level of appalling penury for a G7 country.

Spoke to my own sister over in Glasgow over the weekend and, relatively comfortable middle-class they might be, they're going to have to use their life savings to pay bills in the winter. I's so bad here, but it's exponentially worse across the water and its' heart-breaking.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119574512#Comment_119574512

Nice little dig at the younger generations as well.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119574422#Comment_119574422

The dark side of being a free-trading, individualistic nation is that if the individual ends up in dire straits, they can go whistle. It's the strongest form of this ideology that was exported en masse to the thirteen colonies and we can see the results today.

It always amuses me that the NHS exists but moreso that it's the closest thing the UK has to a universal religion. Nobody knows how it was founded and few when. It's tied to Attlee and the Labour party and, were it not an inheritance of the postwar period, the idea of it today would be seen as pure Stalinism.

Meanwhile, people continuously vote for a party that ideologically opposed the existence of the state as a whole, particularly the NHS where various insurance-based equivalents exist in other countries.

I think they're assuming that people will just take it and carry on. I doubt the French would take it that way but I'm not one to opine on that sort of thing. The UK has a long established class system whereas the French seem much more prone to demonstrations when things go awry or may do so.

To conclude with a pic:

https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1566776040122466309

Larbre34

Its really the worst outcome for all of Britain

• She has no mandate.
• She couldn't even beat the Asian fella by a cricket score, and the Tories would elect a store mannequin before an Asian.
• Boris loyalists are going to be aiming for her Achilles tendons with sharp blades from moment one.
• She won't hold an election to affirm her Government and her position.
• She doesn't have the experience or the balls to do anything decisive against anyone.
• She is going to be up against potentially the greatest peacetime civil disorder since the 1930s, which which even a good PM would struggle (yes including the NI civil rights era)
• She is talentless, clueless and rudderless.

Spanish Eyes

She will be a surprise to everyone and be a brilliant success.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119574934#Comment_119574934

She must be that promised unicorn grazing in the sunny uplands promised by the Brexiteers in that case.

blackcard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119574934#Comment_119574934

A different ringmaster but essentially it will be the same circus with mostly the same clowns as before

growleaves

"She has no mandate."

Prime Ministers receive a mandate from Parliament. It's not the United States.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119575636#Comment_119575636

Yes and no. It's not but the flavour of the past few GE's, especially 2019 has been... presidential. The contest was focused on Corbyn v Johnson and their beliefs and ideologies. The only time anyone else got a look in was on radio and TV interviews but main focus was always on the two main men.