General British politics discussion thread

Liz truss as foreign secretary? I honestly didn't think Boris would be so irresponsible as to appoint some more ignorant, stupid, entitled and prone to foot in mouth syndrome than dominc Raab but he managed it.

At least it's gonna be fun to watch the omnishambles of Liz truss trying to dig the UK out of the soft power crater they have dug themselves into.

Particularly opportune to time the much trumpeted reshuffle to coincide with a vigorous debate and opposition motion in the commons on the decision to end the universal credit uplift, but nothing less than you'd expect from this government. A decision so unpopular that Johnson could only mandate his troops to abstain rather than defeat the motion. Speculation we'll soon see another u turn, but how humiliating would that be? Hasn't stopped them before, I guess.

Anyway, given the choice between that and a reshuffle, the pol corrs were all predictably over the latter. Kuennsberg and Peston giddy with the intrigue of it since the morning, like birthday and xmas day all rolled into one for them. God only knows what distraction the tories will have lined up for the end of the month when the uplift formally expires!

Anglosphere goes strength to strength. Yes the UK sees it's future in some parallel universe. But the Anglosphere goes strength to strength. I'm interested in both your interpretation of the Anglosphere and what strength to strength mean in actual reality. ( You know, human terms)

In most countries public procurement law requires the government to accept the lowest tender, unless there is a strong and objectively demonstrable reason for accepting a higher one. Knowing this, all tenderers put in the lowest possible tender - they have no chance of getting the gig otherwise. In order to keep the headline price down, they will make - and state up front - a range of extremely optimistic assumptions about future events (raw materials costs won't rise over the course of the project, labour costs won't rise at more than x% per year, the sun will shine ever day . . .). Individually, each of the assumptions is optimistic but not absurd; collectively, there is no chance whatsoever that they will all be born out. So the cost will always be greater than the tender cost - always. This then appears in newspaper headlines as a "blowout" but, in fact, it was always going to happen.

You can't blame the tenderers for this - the rules require it. If they don't do this, they don't get the gig.

Starmer publishes a dry 14,000 word essay on his "vision."

Johnson "tells Macron to "donnez-moi un break" and get over his anger.

Both pretty stupid but it's obvious Boris wins again.