General British politics discussion thread

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120737799#Comment_120737799

Except in the various areas that just threw out Tory councils last month after sometimes decades.

That 47% or so poll means there isn't a safe seat around; plus lots and lots of the big names actually represent seats that historically were yellow

Peregrinus

Nobody's going to go yellow or red because of the Privileges Committee report on Johnson, but lots of people have already gone, or may yet go, yellow or red because of things Johnson did that the government cannot or will not now remediate.

(Plus, a few people may go purple (UKIP) or turquoise (Reform) or simply stay at home because of the Privileges Committee report. It's not as effective as going yellow or red but it still damages the Tories, so that's nice. Question is whether anyone already alienated from the Tories by Johnson's general appallingness might now go back because it seems the party has finally purged itself of him.)

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120742718#Comment_120742718

I wouldn't use that as a metric. People don't tend to treat council elections as seriously as general elections. It's the same reason UKIP did well in the number of MEPs they had.

That said, Blair did turn some blue seats red in 1997. It's not impossible but I think there'll still be plenty of safe options for many Tory MPs.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120742794#Comment_120742794

Fro the last bit to happen senior Tories would have needed to make a firm stand rather than trying to scheme and worm out of the report and vote.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120742976#Comment_120742976

The whole thing may have been done in a shamefaced and mealy-mouthed way but, in the end (if rather too late) Johnson has been effectively purged. That at least makes it possible for right-of-centre voters who demand basic standards of decency in politics to consider voting Tory again. Whether they'll rush back is another matter.

pixelburp

At this stage, Boris Johnson like Trump before him, is a figure for whom minds will be made up. I doubt there are many remaining people who have yet to figure where they stand on the man & his politics. So the Committee Report reads as an appalling indictment of his hubris and incompetence ... but also a reinforcement of exactly those qualities in the eyes of people who hate him. Or a hatchet job from the remaining Sunk Cost acolytes who have bought wholesale into his performative bullshít.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120743010#Comment_120743010

If they do come back because Johnson has been purged they are lying to themselves.

This report is in spite of Sunak who wanted it buried and was himself at some of these rule breaking parties. Plenty of MPs who propped Johnson up still around too so this is no more than a Junta changing the figure head.

Peregrinus

Plenty of MPs who propped Johnson up are still around but — and this is the key point — they are no longer propping Johnson up. Only a handful of Tory MPs have come out to toe the Johnson party line on the Privileges Committee as a show trial, kanagaroo court, etc.

And don't bang on about Sunak having been at rule-breaking parties; that's Johnsonian bullshit. Everyone knows he was at rule-breaking parties. Johnson hasn't been purged because of his attendance at rule-breaking parties; it's only his fanboys who like to pretend that he has.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120743132#Comment_120743132

Did Johnson not get the boot from the PM job because of those parties. It's an important point that Sunak was also at the parties that got so much attention and calls for a previous PM to step down ?

The party is still rotten and anyone who goes back to them just because Johnson is gone is either just fooling themselves or desperately looking for any excuse to vote against the "red terror"

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120742803#Comment_120742803

Euro elections used list PR which has a much lower barrier to getting elected than the FPTP/multi vote FPTP that councils use. Really not comparable

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120743167#Comment_120743167

No. The parties did lead to a vote of confidence (which he survived) but they were just one of many scandals that progressively eroded his reputation with the public and his support within the party. Support within the party was also eroded by repeated episodes in which he would demand that MPs go out and publicly defend various indefensible things, only to repudiate those things himself later, leaving MPs looking foolish, dishonest or both.

In the end he had to go as PM because a whip he appointed had to resign after having committed undeniable sexual assaults. Johnson sent his ministers out to say, on his behalf, that he had no idea before appointing the guy that he did such things. Then it turned out that, when Foreign Secretary, Johnson had been officially briefed by the civil service about official complaints against, and investigations into, that same guy for this exact behaviour; what he sent his ministers out to say was a lie. At that point his ministers started to resign and, a day or so later, when fifty-something of them had resigned, even Johnson accepted that he had to go.

Seriously, I'm no fan of Sunak, but in terms of unfitness for office Johnson is in a whole different league.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120743207#Comment_120743207

They are comparable in a cultural sense. The d'Hondt system isn't the same as the PR-STV system Ireland uses. The Brexit party took 30% of the vote in 2019, the largest share by some way. Compare that to the Westminster election where they got 0 seats.

Leroy42

I still cannot understand what Sunak is trying to do by running away and hiding. Apart from an appalling lack of leadership, it completely blows apart his claims of integrity across the government. I simply cannot work out what the political calculation is behind the decision.

He can't still be worried about Johnson support, it is pretty clear that he has very little. Polling suggest that the public has tired of him

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120743496#Comment_120743496

It's what they've been doing since the Brexit votes - kick the can down the road and let whoever runs the show then deal with it. It's pathetic, spineless and ultimately self-destructive but it's also the current Tory mentality.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120743300#Comment_120743300

I think you are giving way too much moral credit to Tory MPs.

The end began when they took a battering in the May elections and the by-elections which very much happened due to the Covid scandal. Yes there were loads of other scandals that built up around the same time which contributed but the whip scandal was yet to come.

MPs including Sunak only jumped when it was clear he was endangering their jobs.

I agree Sunak isn't as bad as Johnson but he is still the man who handed over full oversight of the Chancellorship to Cummins to further himself and was happy to prop up Johnson so really doesn't seem a trustworthy person.

Leroy42

I am fast coming to the view that Sunak is actually quite awful as PM. I didn't expect too much from him from the outset but held out some hope that the role would maketh the man. From everything I have seen and heard from him, it appears that he is way out of his depth and could potentially be vying for a position in the worst PM list.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120743583#Comment_120743583

Na Truss has worst PM well sown up.

Great news for Teresa May though as she could be out of the top 3 worst in a year or two.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120743583#Comment_120743583

Sunak isn't bad, he's just a corporate non-entity; the apotheosis of this idea of the post-Blair era politician; all slick public persona and PR, crisp shirt sleeve rolled up as you pretend to pump petrol into a car. I suspect he has this persistent toxic idea that running a country is like running a business, the PM just a glorified CEO - cos Sunak's entire energy stinks of that approach.

ancapailldorcha

The irony of course being that that approach exists alongside such "big beasts" as Lee Anderson and Jacob Rees-Mogg. I don't disagree with the analysis though I would add that Blair (I know you said "post-Blair") made things work, as did the Cameron-Clegg coalition though that was largely for the worse. It reminds me of when Irish people would express a desire to see Michael O'Leary running the place though Ireland's PR system makes such a thing fantastical, fortunately.

I honestly can't pin a single achievement on Sunak. The Windsor Framework comes to mind but even that was already put in place by Johnson. The CEO thing might work if he could put a single policy to his name but the one he's famous for, Eat Out to Help Out, is clearly something he'd prefer to be forgotten about.

The oddest thing of all is that he's now been branded as some kind of remainer despite having written anti-EU essays as a teenager. The Conservatives are stuck with him at this point as there's nobody who's willing to take over. Johnson, perhaps but he's shown himself to be too cowardly to endure a slap on the wrist and his followers have been cowed by reality.

L1011

David Frost appears to be planning a return to the Commons, which suggests he wants to be try be PM.

He'd be even worse

Ahwell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120743768#Comment_120743768

I think the perception of Sunak is very different to the reality. He is very far to the right, particularly on social matters.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120743935#Comment_120743935

Oh I know he's fairly right wing, many CEOs would be lol though I'd be ignorant of his social views true, but his public persona and tactics are trying desperately for that affable corpo-who-cares, with nothing behind it. The real damage is being done by all the grifters and casty nunts in his cabinet.

Nody

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120743903#Comment_120743903

Oh please let him become the PM; I know it's kicking someone who's down but that would really put a hob knob boot into the Tory party...

rock22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120743818#Comment_120743818

I am no fan of Sunak, or any Tory at this stage, but he did agree the Windsor framework with the EU, something that Johnston didn't do even if the bones of the deal were there from the EU already. He has repaired some damage with the US, although a long way short of any 'special relationship'. He has begun to talk to Macron and others .

These are all small achievements. In fact they would all be classified as just doing the business of government - except it is in marked contrast to Johnston and his desire to sow conflict everywhere and achieve nothing.

Right now though, he is lucky with the leader of the opposition who wants to make Brexit work.

Ahwell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120744098#Comment_120744098

There was a clip of him last week, maybe the week before, donning a bulletproof vest and a ****-eating grin, standing outside a north London house while Home Office officials were carrying out a dawn raid looking for illegal migrants. It was as pathetic looking as it sounds. There is this notion that he is suffering Suella Braverman as Home Secretary to appease the party's swivel eyed loons, but all the evidence points to him being totally in step with her.

He did a fair bit of damage himself as Chancellor. How he got this reputation as being competent after his time in that ministry is beyond me. Then again, I suppose it is relatively easy look that way when you are being compared to Johnson and Truss.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120743903#Comment_120743903

"Return" is a bit of a misnomer here; he has never been in the Commons. Indeed, he has never held elected office of any kind.

But I agree with Nody; Frost as leader of the Tory party would be a hilarious pleasure in the worst possible way.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120743768#Comment_120743768

"Slick" is not the first thing that leaps to mind when I think of Sunak. The guy is painfully awkward and patently insincere, even (I suspect) when he is actually being sincere.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120747448#Comment_120747448

I suppose, "slick" in the sense of his PR operation, not the man himself. As you say he's awkward and has all the natural charisma of an alien on its first visit to earth; but there's a very intentional, polished machine behind him that tries - desperately tries - to present him as this cool, relatable person who pumps petrol and feeds homeless while cracking wise.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120747486#Comment_120747486

That hardly distinguishes him from any other politician these days, though, does it? Change Tory leaders all you like, you're still going to get that. Change governments and you'll still get it.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120747530#Comment_120747530

I find Sunak's charm offensive more false than your typical Tory or Politician of a modern stripe; won't deny it's a degree of personal bias on my part, against the Privileged Class. Sunak is phenomenally wealthy and privileged, the performative "look how cool and easy going I am" rings especially false and is quickly rumbled when he does try these PR stunts. Say what you will about Johnson or Reese Mogg - and I will - they never tried hiding their status. That's a whole different problem in UK society, but they never tried not to be the posh-boys they are.