General British politics discussion thread

Is it? Why bring Suellen into the cabinet in the first place, and have to provide cover for her on many occasions simply to turn around now and bring in a non-elected member to the cabinet?

He shows his party, and the country, that he believes that no-one within the current ranks of MP's is actually good enough for the position. Far from moving on from Brexit, this brings the entire episode back front and centre to all the voters. Is Cameron going to run at the next election? If not, this looks like a jobs for the boys plan, and if yes is Cameron really going to be happy to maybe not win the seat and if he does to sit in opposition for years with no prospects?

There is no doubt that short-term this is a great play. Suellen would have assumed that she would be the centre-piece of all news coverage at least yesterday, but probably all week. Instead all the main stories, all the podcasts etc, were about Camerons return.

But once the surprise and excitement has settled down, the reality will set in to the party, and the wider public. Sunak has no faith in his own MP's, his decision making has been terrible, his plan to be the change candidate launched at party conference lasted less than a month as he is seen to be going back to the old hits rather than his own path.

And rather more relevantly, just like they allowed them to get away with Truss and Sunak. Does anybody really think that the "British public" are going to say "one unelected PM was fine, even two, but three? No, three would be clearly absurd"

I think they hang on until December for 3 reasons

1. It maximises the time for things to improve. (If this doesn't happen, well then they are no worse off and lose regardless)
2. They won in December 2019. Which was clearly a lot to with the way that election was framed around Johnson/Corbyn, Oven ready deals and getting Brexit done. But they may feel the time of year worked for them and against Labour.
3. Trump factor. Reasonable chance that Trump is President-in-waiting and gives them a bump about how a bumper trade deal with the UK is possible but not with the communist Starmer. If Trump doesn't win, well so be it.

It is to do with the way certain sections of UK society act as if it has a presidential system.

I was responding to someone who thought the British public wouldn't let them away with another "unelected PM" which, rightly or wrongly, is a perception that is widely held.

Personally, I don't consider them unelected

This "mandate" notion is only a load of sht carried over from US politics.

Each Tory MP has a mandate and as the largest party they have a mandate to install a PM. So there are loads of mandates flying about.

If people don't know a party can change PM mid term then they need to go educate themselves a bit before they vote next time.

I disagree, a party and its MPs are elected based on their program for government if a new PM completely changes it, ie what Truss did, then I don't believe they have a mandate to enact that new program as the voters never had a say on it.

Completely true. But when the Brexiteers made such a noise about unelected EU Bureaucrats it rings rather hollow when they then claim that parliament if voted by the people and therefore is able to make any choice it wants.

I don't disagree with your pensioners comment. But I guess the maths might be 'we lose a few pensioners from our vote coz of the weather, but the other side loses more feckless 20/30 somethings who are out partying on the second last Thursday before Christmas, and students packing up for the trip home'.

Again I don't disagree with your points about Trump. But to be clear I'm not saying it will work - I'm purely saying it's a reason for them to believe its best to hang on until December ("Rishi, Maybe President-to-be Trump will do/say something which is advantageous for us.").

Like I'm not saying December is a winning strategy - clearly in poker parlance they are down to a 1-outer - but it's probably their best strategy.

Many MPs are elected on local issues. Probably as many are as are not. Many more are because someone is a "Labour" or "Tory" person.

You are not voting for the leader so that mandate stuff is just stupid and a distraction.