UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[Joe Republic]

Michelle Donelan has been made Culture Secretary. Guess she’ll get to be in the Cabinet for more than 24 hours after all! She’s got to be one of the unquestioned upgrades because, after Dorries, the only way is up.

Uhh… so where does this put Dorries?

[Joe Republic]

Michelle Donelan has been made Culture Secretary. Guess she’ll get to be in the Cabinet for more than 24 hours after all! She’s got to be one of the unquestioned upgrades because, after Dorries, the only way is up.

Uhh… so where does this put Dorries?

The Lords. I sh**t you not.

JFC.  But at least that's a way to send her off into irrelevance.


Side note - for the first time ever, none of the four great offices of state is occupied by a white man.

[Joe Republic]

Wait, so how many affairs has she had, that we know of?  She had one with Mark Field in 2004-05 when he was an MP but she wasn't yet.  And now rumors with Kwasi Kwarteng.  Who else?

[Joe Republic]

The death of the monarch use to lead to a general election.

The last time that happened was 1837 when William IV died.  (There were two elections in 1910, but neither had anything to do with the death of Edward VII.)

[Joe Republic]

Can anyone tell me *why* Charles should/must go by something else? I really have no clue about British monarchal politics or procedures or protocols, so what's the deal with this? Why can't he just call himself 'King Charles?'

Nearly all kings/queens have gone by their own first name, but not quite all.  Both Edward VII's and George VI's first names were Albert, but they chose to use one of their middle names as king because (in Edward's opinion) the name Albert "should stand alone" out of respect for his father, and George VI followed that precedent.  Technically Victoria's first name was Alexandrina, but she had gone by Victoria throughout her childhood.

So the option to take another name is always there, but rarely used.

[Joe Republic]

Refusing to wait the traditional period, and just naming William as Prince of Wales now gets rid of a lot of pointless media speculation, and helps reinforce the transition (it certainly gave me slight vertigo for a moment). Seems like a good call.

It makes sense to me too.  Charles was only three years old when his mother became Queen and he became heir.  She made him Prince of Wales when he was 10, and his investiture was when he was 21.  Meanwhile, William is already 40 years old.  No point dragging this out.

[Joe Republic]

_{*The easier way to avoid this situation would have been to have the funeral on a Saturday, as was actually done the last time we had a State Funeral in Britain (Churchill in 1965), the last time we had a public funeral as major as this one (Diana in 1997), and the last time we had a funeral for a senior member of the Royal Family (Prince Philip last year). Curious.}

George VI's funeral was on a Friday.

[Joe Republic]

Hard to believe we still have two more years of this sh**t, isn't it?

[Joe Republic]

Perhaps now would be a good time for Labour to dig up this video from a few years back:

I mean Christ, we need to reshoot it for the American palate and play it on loop over here, 24/7.

[Joe Republic]

It's just completely surreal to see the pace of this. Obviously I've seen leaders manage to completely wreck their countries' economies (and their own parties' standing in the process), but I don't recall anything happening close to this fast. Campbell at least had like three months somewhat holding the line before the nosedive. Liz Truss became Prime Minister this month!

And most of this month the government went into stasis while the crown changed hands.  Truss has essentially only been PM for about a week!

[Joe Republic]

The nation was asked to change the voting system only a decade ago and they said "no" by a 2:1 majority.  A Labour government going ahead themselves and changing it anyway would not exactly be a good look.

[Joe Republic]

https://twitter.com/kwasikwarteng/status/1576133060411523072?s=21&t=l3T7MosO...


😬😬😬

[Joe Republic]

Issue with a Boris restoration after a defeat is he'd lose his seat in almost any election resulting in a Labour government, nevermind the sort of cataclysm the Tories face now. Of course, I suppose he could move to a safer seat, but I'm not sure how likely that is.

Hilariously, his previous seat prior to becoming Mayor of London is projected to stay blue even in that wonderful LABOR NUT map back on page 24.  But alas, it's not his any more.

[Joe Republic]

Kwarteng is backing down

[Joe Republic]

https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1577327686430511104

What does the projected constituency map look like now?  😂😂

[Joe Republic]

I'm sensing that perhaps the reason why Dorries has turned on Truss so quickly is because they've backed out of shipping her to the Lords, now that there is a possibility of the Tories losing a by-election in (checks notes) Mid Bedfordshire?

[Joe Republic]

UK Prime Minister Liz Truss has joined the likes of Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario as she stars in her own fast-paced platform game, In Liz We Trust?

Alongside the launch of titles such as FIFA 23, Overwatch 2 and The Last of Us Part 1, In Liz We Trust? has joined the recently released lists. The 8-bit platformer sees Truss stealing coins from British homes and delivering them to the City of London.

It isn’t plain sailing for Truss though, as she faces the Leader of the Opposition, Sir Keir Starmer, Conservative party member Michael Gove, the Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, as well as regional BBC journalists who are all determined to stop her succeeding. The Prime Minister only has three lives to gather as many coins as possible before it’s game over.

https://downloads.construct.net/inlizwetruss/index.html

[Joe Republic]

I guess I would count myself as one of the 11% of Labour supporters who approve of Liz Truss' job performance. 

[Joe Republic]

What's the record shortest tenure ever for a PM?  Asking for a friend

[Joe Republic]

The only hope the Tories have of saving any face at all is to quickly anoint a consensus replacement to avoid another drawn out leadership contest, like in 2003.  Howard still lost the next election of course, but at least helped the party claw back a few dozen seats, whereas IDS would have probably lost them even more.

But anyway, they don't have a consensus choice waiting in the wings to save them, so this is all moot.

[Joe Republic]

https://twitter.com/peterbakernyt/status/1581288178363035648?s=20&t=y26u4_js...

[Joe Republic]

Well this can't be good:

A Hong Kong pro-democracy protester was pulled into Chinese consulate grounds in Manchester on Sunday and beaten up.

A BBC journalist on the scene filmed unidentified men coming out of the consulate and forcing a man inside the compound, before he escaped with the help of police and other demonstrators.

The protester told the BBC "they dragged me inside, they beat me up".

A consulate spokesperson said protesters had displayed an insulting portrait of China's president.

The Foreign Office said it was urgently seeking clarity on the incident.

[Joe Republic]

Can we get Badenoch just to watch it all burn?

UK General Discussion: As If Things Weren't Badenoch

UK General Discussion: Things Can Only Get Badenoch

[Joe Republic]

Only the Member for Maidenhead can save the party now.

Who knew this gif would ever make a return in 2022?

[Joe Republic]

Braverman: "The business of government relies upon people accepting responsibility for their mistakes. Pretending we haven't made mistakes, carrying on as if everyone can't see that we have made them, and hoping that things will magically come right is not serious politics. I have made a mistake; I accept responsibility; I resign."

😂😂😂