UK General Discussion: 2017 and onwards, Mayhem

[Barnes]

He's Mayor of London, rightly or wrongly voters might blame him too.

Housing is a matter for the borough councils, not the Mayor.

I hope enough people knows the difference.

The electoral calendar helps. London borough councils are up next year, Khan in 2020.

I'm ashamed to admit the local government dynamics in England is very confusing to me.

They are, by and large, the closest British politics comes to being like House of Cards. With DDR-style Volkskammers and Tory principalities fighting both one another and themselves in bloodshed not seen since the War of the Roses.

[Barnes]

[Barnes]

Ministers have taken questions in the Commons and Lords regularly for the better part of 200 years, but the formalized system of a specific question period based on portfolio only developed after the Second World War. Before then, ministers could be asked questions at any point during the day, which is why these now take place in the afternoon for the PM since the Conservatives agreed to help out Gladstone during his final premiership when he was in his eighties!

You will find that if you look at similar procedures in other Commonwealth countries, the level of "praise the leader" from Government backbenchers is really rather tame. The most egregious example is Australia where all questions from the Governemnt's side are basically written by the relevant minister and sent to that MPs office to ask. 

[Barnes]

This is when someone comes in the with Paxman's hot take that Corbyn's manifesto actually wasn't that left wing, and was simply Milibandism on steroids.

Worth Corbyn arguably has moved the party to the right on immigration, and has convinced an extremely pro-EU party to adopt a more euroskeptic tone. Of course the right of the party would have done the same.

My knowledge of pre-'79 Labour politics is shaky but wasn't the 1974-76 Wilson Government pretty on the left, at least before the recession really hit hard.

Rhetorically, absolutely, and there were some major condensations to the left--holding the 1975 referendum being one. Remember Healey's infamously mis-quoted promise to tax the rich until the "pips squeaked." This was pursued somewhat before '76 but there were still a raft of spending cuts.

The great u-turn--Healey Mark II--came in September '76 with the IMF bailout.

[Barnes]

It's always amusing that Wilson marked himself out with Bevan in the walkout of 1951 and formed the great opposition to Gateskillism in the '50s but his entire record as leader is totally one of vascillating between factions. One of his greatest attributes was never allowing himself to be pinned down in one camp as leader and this not stoking coherent opposition from the other side.

Apparently, Tony Benn claimed that Wilson taught him that a bird "needs two wings to fly: a left wing and a right wing." I doubt ole Wedgie was that appreciative of that lesson at the time, but there you are!