General British politics discussion thread

He'll win his seat in Richmond unless of course he stands down/retires straight away from politics as soon as the result is confirmed

Just heard his pool interview

RepeRepeats the same lines over and over but the one that stands out is where he says this was planned weeks in advance, so before he called the GE and before he knew about the ITV interview he had already planned to skip the international memorial.

Not in the UK. Howard in Australia.

People say Balfour in the UK but he had stood down as PM by then with a new PM appointed who won the election that Balfour lost in. Only a matter of weeks, but he was not PM anymore.

I've always thought it was weird that he wanted to be a PM or even a member of parliament. He's a multi millionaire and his wife is from a billionaire family. It was really strange that a young man in his 30s wanted to go into politics of all things on a salary that is a tiny fraction of his actual income.

This makes Teresa May's election campaign look like a triumphal procession in comparison.

There are better hobbies than being humiliated/humiliating yourself on an almost daily basis.

But he never thought he would humiliate himself. He thought he would be the best PM ever. That his unique mixture of intelligence and awesomeness, which has led his life to be one success after another, would be rewarded yet again by being brilliant.

What the hell was he thinking in the 1st place?

In what universe did skipping off after the British section seem like a good idea? The PM of Global Britain with no time for other countries!

What an absolute disaster for the Tories. While the 2k might have been dubious in the calculation at least it meant the media were focused on Labour for a few days. Now the spotlight is very firmly on Sunak and his failure as a leader.

His excuse appears to be that it had nothing to do with the GE campaign, as it was all arranged weeks ago. So he couldn't even be bothered when he wasn't fighting an election (you can at least understand the 'thinking' by wanting to get back to campaigning) but now he is saying that he was never bothered at all.

And simply repeating the same rote learned lines again and again, like some sort of wind-up teddy bear, only shows how little he has even considered the impact. He needed to come out with contrition. A simple apology and then a swift move to how great he is doing was never going to cut it. It's an apology whilst at the same time making the point, repeatedly, that he was at a number of days and does loads for veterans…so it comes across as what are people complaining about.

he got a first from Oxford. You can’t buy that.

He sounds like a poor version of a chatbot, using a limited set of stock phrases in response to any question put to it...

"A vote for Reform is a vote for Starmer" is already being used. Although its Tory/LibDem marginals that are more likely to suffer from a Reform split I'd think.

Depends on who donated what to which institution

Sunak at college was recorded by the BBC laughing at the idea of knowing working class people, so he likes the auld class wars himself.

That's a good point : almost as if he went into politics as a bit of a lark and to amuse himself.