General British politics discussion thread

Oh man this isn't that complicated. A large majority don't regard themselves as Northern Irish.

The creation of Northern Ireland was an attempt by London to solve the 'Irish problem'. It was nothing about the creation of a nation.

I could give you a longer Irish history lesson while you're on your high horse about English people.

Its own banks, its own transport authority, its own religion, it's own broadsheets, it's own media, its own football team, its own laws, its own customs (not related to Ireland or Britain).

Another way the UK isn't like France, Spain and whoever else is the can't even have a uniform bank note (pre Euro obviously)

Paddys were bad that's all you needed to know.

Same as all Middle Eastern/Arab/Muslim people in the 00s

'The chances that the next Labour government will have 5 PMs in 6 years are about 10m to 1. Same goes for a PM so bad they can't outlast a rotting lettuce.'

Disagree. If for some reason Keir Starmer quit or fell ill he could easily be replaced by a series of affirmative action insta-failures coming in and collapsing one after another like dominos. Which is what happened to the Tories.

Its unofficial Tory policy to adhere to diversity and inclusion selection criteria, which is why they ended up cycling through so many unsuitable PMs out of their depth.

Note: I'm not saying that minorities can't do the job, but if they have been deliberately over-promoted as some of them clearly had then that of course increases the chances of a succession of rapid failures.

They weren't taught that.

That poster doesn't seem to know much about Northern Ireland.

Anything is different to being taught bad I would have thought.

There had been 100s of years of "education" from the likes of Punch and later the tabloids.

Well that's his point. They lump them in because their education doesn't teach them not to.

Yes affirmative action is unofficial policy for Tory candidate selection. There are de facto diversity and inclusion considerations, which partly explains the rise of Liz Truss, and there has been tremendous internal pressure to do this since the David Cameron era.*

No I didn't read it in a newspaper, 'again'. A British academic Tory-insider told me.

You aren't as smart as you think you are and now you're getting insulting.

Your robotic information dumps lack insight.

As with other posters here, your partisanism is so extreme that you leave no room for disagreement.

*(I don't mean older, ordinary Tory party members at the final phase of the selection process - as they can't be pressured in this way)

You're making a different claim here. The Tories may or may not have an unofficial policy of promoting diversity in the selection of parliamentary candidates, but they have no such policy when it comes to selecting the party leader. Indeed, given the mechanisms by which the party leader is selected, and the complete absence of any involvement by CCHQ at any stage of the process, it's hard to see how such a policy could operate.

Besides, one of the most conspicuously awful leaders they have chosen is Boris Johnson, and you can't possibly account for his selection by pointing to any alleged policy of diversity and inclusion, unless by some chance you regard "people whose true calling is as the back end of a pantomime horse" as a protected category that benefits from diversity policies.

This. The Tories have produced a succession of dismal leaders, each worse than the last — Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss. It's too soon to say if Sunak will reverse the the trend. (To be honest, he should — all he has to do is be not quite so bad as Truss.)

Election by the members has been the rule since 1998. A complete list of the leaders elected since 1998 is — Smith, Howard, Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak. Neither Smith or Howard ever held office as PM, but I think it's fair to say that both are judged pretty poorly as party leaders. Cameron had obvious successes, but these are overshadowed by his disastrous misjudgement and mismanagement in relation to the Brexit referendum. After that, it's been steadily downhill, then steeply downhill. Taking the rough with the smooth, a pretty shite record for the system of electing leaders by party members. And, growleaves' claims notwithstanding, I see nothing to suggest that any of these leaders was chosen as part of an unofficial policy to promote diversity. As Podge points out, I don't see how such a policy could have been brought to bear, given the leadership election processes.

I only found out last night it's the first ever. One of those ones where I had to go back and read again to be sure.

This government does seem to love making history 🤣

By-election today in Stretford and Urmston (football fans will know by the name that it's a Manchester constituency).

Labours Kate Green resigned her seat to work as a deputy to Andy Burnham (and I hazard a guess might have one eye on the mayoral role itself in the future when Burnham surely returns to the national stage).

2022 Stretford and Urmston by-election - Wikipedia

Realistically it's a slam-dunk Labour hold, and as always the percentages will be the only thing of any interest. It might point to what we can expect to see in Manchester in a GE - it's a city similar to London that leans Labour (18 of 27 seats) with some Conservative strongholds. Constituencies like Altrincham (Sir Graham Brady, 11% majority over Labour in 2019) just might be in play next time.

And somewhere like Leigh (one of the more disastrous 2019 Labour losses) is an essential target for them.

List of parliamentary constituencies in Greater Manchester - Wikipedia

It was William Hague who changed the rules to allow members to have a say. I heard him on Times Radio a few months back saying the reason for this was to make it harder to depose a sitting leader, i.e., him. The unintended, but wholly predictable, consequences of this was...those members were bound to elect a lunatic like Truss at some stage.

True, but those members would have voted from him all over again if they were given a chance, I am almost certain that the English public wouldn't though. Those rules present a big problem for the Tory party because of how out of touch the membership is with the rest of the electorate.