General British politics discussion thread

Sunak might seem the most competent of the candidates, but I'd be very suspicious of him - he was a Brexiteer even before the 2016 referendum, unlike those fake Brexiteers and cynical opportunists like Johnson, Truss and Frost.

From what I can gather, she is is a very poor Home Secretary. Yes, she's a hardliner and rabid Brexiteer etc, but UK political observers reckon she is very mediocre in the role in general and not someone who inspires confidence.

Cannot wait for Prime Minister Questions tomorrow. This drama is better than any thing on tv

They could of used this for House of Cards script

In fairness, throwing Mattie Storin off the HOC roof garden was probably a more dramatic tv cliff hanger than having a party in the Downing Street one.

But there are definitely parallels to how it ended for Urquhart with past events spiralling completely out of control and his enemies circling as his sins & lies are revealed.

I think whoever has orchestrated all this has done it really well - drip-feeding enough of the story on a regular basis and making sure each morsel was better than the last. Cleverly forcing the PM & his allies to go on the record with their reaction without anyone knowing what is to come down the line. In previous scandals the leakers have started with the best bit, and then the story had nowhere to go with the subsequent revelations being much weaker.

Just to add to this that if Johnson gets the boot I think there will be a focus on, at least the appearance, that the sleaze and graft goes with him. Patel is implicated in that department for at least two reasons:

1. Her repeated bullying of underlings led to Johnson completely ignoring an independent enquiry's recommendations that she be disciplined
2. She used her influence to gain lucrative PPE contracts for cronies

She's also clearly a cruel and vindictive person - but hey the Tory base might actually see that as a plus!

Sunak has relatively little high-level experience - He only entered Cabinet in February 2020, so he has less than two years under his belt. I can't offhand think of another person who became PM with so little Cabinet experience, when their party had been in office for more than a decade.

He has done well as Chancellor, but primarily because Treasury has generally performed very well in meeting the extraordinary requirements of the pandemic, in marked distinction to some other Departments. And that speaks mainly to the strength and depth of Treasury's administrative capacity and resilience and the quality of its management, all of which were in place before he became Chancellor. So, while I agree that he may seem the most competent of the candidates, that's on the basis of fairly thin evidence; it mainly reflects the conspicuous dearth of competence in the wider Tory leadership. He seems most competent not because he had demonstrated conspicuous competence but because the alternatives have demonstrated no competence at all.

And I agree with you that he's on the economic and Brexity right of the party. If he pursues those policies, they will not serve the UK well. But he may - we don't know this - be more of a pragmatist than most on the economic and Brexity right, and this might moderate the zeal with which he implements the hard-right's destructive agenda.

The writing was on the wall for this regime when they prorogued Parliament ahead of a Queen's Speech in 2019.

They got away with it because the country was still foaming at the mouth in the mire of Brexit.

Now that Brexit is in place and everyone has been brought back down to earth and calmed down, the people expect Johnson to behave like a normal politician which is beyond his capability.

 Rishi Sunak is conveniently not in the chamber for PMQ's. New PM maybe?

Well what do people think was that "apology" enough?

He looks broken.

I thought a few weeks ago that Johnson would lead them into the next election.

Now, I think he’ll be gone within a fortnight. The only question is if he resigns or is voted out by his parliamentary party members.

The potential candidates to replace him are so incredibly weak, though. My money would be on Sunak- cabinet experience aside, I think he would stand the best chance of winning a GE for them. But I’m hoping this is the beginning of the end of Tory rule.

Tbh his ability to just keep trundling along after each scandal is incredible.

He's going nowhere today, this was actually quite underwhelming given what was at stake.