UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Scotland/comments/seoy2d/to_think_bawjaws_government_might_have_fallen_in/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Apparently bojo birthday party was old news.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

It’s quite impressive that Boris is going to survive this- most likely without even a confidence vote happening.

Good news for labour, helps it stick with the tory party.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

And after years of writing about Labour MPs and CLPs being out of touch it’s very interesting how little is written about how divorced from reality parts of the Conservative party are becoming.

What were the most divorced from reality parts ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Incidentally, if Johnson were to repeat a certain lie outside the Commons chamber, he would almost certainly face a libel suit which, were it to happen, he would certainly lose and would certainly have to pay extremely heavy damages.

Which lie ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

To the suprise of nobody it seems like "Operation Save Big Dog" which was supposed to be Boris throwing his underlings overboard to save himself has not exactly been a spectacular succses

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Be interesting to see who takes over. Probably Truss has to be the favourite if Sunak has self-imploded. Which I don't think is good news for the Tories as I struggle to see who she appeals to that's not already solidly in the Tory camp.

Win back lib dem defectors ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Looks like Dishy Rishi is implicated in this one, too. Its not been a great few days for him.

I see Sunaks fate as becoming one of those "prime ministers we never had" as opposed to prime minister.

Vastly less interesting than Portillo, Heseltine, Butler, Benn, Bevan, Bevin, Mosley, Powell, Corbyn, Clarke, Healey...

Not to mention Gaitskell, Kinnock, Smith, Miliband.....

Or Swinson...

Or Thorpe..

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prime-Ministers-We-Never-Had/dp/1838952411

No, I'm not Steve Richards.

Not worth reading tbh. very banal commentary.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

A minor detail: we have our first Minister from the 2019 intake. Andrew Griffith is the unpaid Parliamentary Under Secretary for Policy at the Cabinet Office, to support Steve Barclay and free up room for him.

Generally what determines if a new MP becomes a minister or becomes Lobby Fodder? What's the actual selection process ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-60318610

How did these people even win a general election when they're blind to the reality in front of them ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I must confess I don’t know what a nostrum is though!

However it does send very bold signals about who their sister party is in the US! I’m old enough to remember Jim Messina working for Cameron!

UK politicians and those in the general Westminster bubble strike me as among the most online politicians in the western world. I get a sense that more MP's do manage their social media personally or are at least personally active than elected representatives in other countries do.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

The Met are investigating a charity linked to Prince Charles.

I see we’re back to the Georgian era of royal scandals every other day. It’s going to be interesting as there’s still a lot of deference towards the firm by Parliament, the Lobby and press.

I find it weird how Corbyn was incredibly silent on his republicanism unlike on many other of his less popular view points

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Any thoughts on the informal Lib-Lab pact that Starmer seems to be forming, according to today’s Financial Times?

Personally, I think it’s a pretty solid strategy, and probably necessary if Labour are going to have any sort of chance in 2024. Making up a 130 seat deficit would be a historic achievement, so you need every seat you can get - letting the Lib Dems have a clear run at Tory seats they can’t win seems like a no brainer.

I'm curious as well as to what the liberals are getting out of this ?, Electoral reforms seems like something that labour would be too divided to support and they don't really seem to have anything too concrete to ask for.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Is there really any need for a pact? Most anti-Tory voters seem fairly aware of the concept of tactical voting these days and will vote accordingly, and given that both Labour and the Lib Dems are now led by fairly uncontroversial leaders there’s much more scope for this to happen than in 2019.

In giving tacit approval to some sort of pact, Labour risks getting pushed into a corner on electoral reform and possibly losing the ability to ever enact any meaningful change again. That should be born in mind before treating with a runt party like that the Liberal Democrats (especially since the prospect of the Lib Dems propping up the Tories in a hung Parliament is remote, and thus they don’t have much in the way of leverage, unlike in 2010).

As well all know no German, Dutch, Kiwi or Australian Labour/S&D party has been able to survive and push through meaningful changes following electoral reform.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Is there really any need for a pact? Most anti-Tory voters seem fairly aware of the concept of tactical voting these days and will vote accordingly, and given that both Labour and the Lib Dems are now led by fairly uncontroversial leaders there’s much more scope for this to happen than in 2019.

In giving tacit approval to some sort of pact, Labour risks getting pushed into a corner on electoral reform and possibly losing the ability to ever enact any meaningful change again. That should be born in mind before treating with a runt party like that the Liberal Democrats (especially since the prospect of the Lib Dems propping up the Tories in a hung Parliament is remote, and thus they don’t have much in the way of leverage, unlike in 2010).

As well all know no German, Dutch, Kiwi or Australian Labour/S&D party has been able to survive and push through meaningful changes following electoral reform.

Well, the ALP has traditionally operated in (broadly speaking) a more two party and majoritarian system than even the British Labour Party and has never participated in a Coalition at the federal level. As for the PvdA and the SPD, their most recent stints in government (stretching back thirty years) are primarily remembered for pushing through policies that their supporters mostly didn’t like. The New Zealand Labour Party remains the central pivot of the centre-left side of politics and thus is able to function on a semi-majoritarian basis (although you’d have to question whether they have been able to effect meaningful change in many areas).

Electoral reform doesn't guarantee the end of the two-party system, but that's another argument for it. If the electorate is broadly happy with their 2 major parties nothing about electoral reform would change that. And that is different from the British Labour parties last stint in office in what way?. A centre-left pivot is a requirement for any left-wing party wishing to govern today, regardless of electoral reform.

The point is electoral reform towards a more proportional system will force Labour to take its manifesto to the cutting room floor after every election (flukes like the New Zealand 2020 general election notwithstanding). Whilst we don’t know what constellation of parties would be thrown up by a more proportional system, we do know that, initially, Labour would most likely have to partner with the Lib Dems, who are no friends of Labour, certainly as far as economic policy goes. I don’t know why a party that is currently showing that it has the capacity to win 40, 41, 42% of the popular vote at the next election (potentially getting it either a majority or near enough to), would throw away the opportunity to be the sole shaper of policy in government (now and forevermore) for the conditional support of a dwarf party that primarily represents England’s leafy suburbs.

Getting the 40+% of the vote requires sacrificing a lot of the parties base policies in itself with no guarantee of getting into power. Rather electoral reform lets the labour concentrate it's police, getting rid of the spoiler effect and giving the hostility of most existing third parties to the conservatives let's it have some more breathing room to appealese the broader nation over a narrow focus on certain margin counsticues.

On another note, Lib dems have traditional represented more disaffected rural areas over leafy suburbs. Even the current lib dems  parlimentary cacus has almost half of it's members representing rural seats, rather than suburban seats

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Is there really any need for a pact? Most anti-Tory voters seem fairly aware of the concept of tactical voting these days and will vote accordingly, and given that both Labour and the Lib Dems are now led by fairly uncontroversial leaders there’s much more scope for this to happen than in 2019.

In giving tacit approval to some sort of pact, Labour risks getting pushed into a corner on electoral reform and possibly losing the ability to ever enact any meaningful change again. That should be born in mind before treating with a runt party like that the Liberal Democrats (especially since the prospect of the Lib Dems propping up the Tories in a hung Parliament is remote, and thus they don’t have much in the way of leverage, unlike in 2010).

As well all know no German, Dutch, Kiwi or Australian Labour/S&D party has been able to survive and push through meaningful changes following electoral reform.

Well, the ALP has traditionally operated in (broadly speaking) a more two party and majoritarian system than even the British Labour Party and has never participated in a Coalition at the federal level. As for the PvdA and the SPD, their most recent stints in government (stretching back thirty years) are primarily remembered for pushing through policies that their supporters mostly didn’t like. The New Zealand Labour Party remains the central pivot of the centre-left side of politics and thus is able to function on a semi-majoritarian basis (although you’d have to question whether they have been able to effect meaningful change in many areas).

Electoral reform doesn't guarantee the end of the two-party system, but that's another argument for it. If the electorate is broadly happy with their 2 major parties nothing about electoral reform would change that. And that is different from the British Labour parties last stint in office in what way?. A centre-left pivot is a requirement for any left-wing party wishing to govern today, regardless of electoral reform.

The point is electoral reform towards a more proportional system will force Labour to take its manifesto to the cutting room floor after every election (flukes like the New Zealand 2020 general election notwithstanding). Whilst we don’t know what constellation of parties would be thrown up by a more proportional system, we do know that, initially, Labour would most likely have to partner with the Lib Dems, who are no friends of Labour, certainly as far as economic policy goes. I don’t know why a party that is currently showing that it has the capacity to win 40, 41, 42% of the popular vote at the next election (potentially getting it either a majority or near enough to), would throw away the opportunity to be the sole shaper of policy in government (now and forevermore) for the conditional support of a dwarf party that primarily represents England’s leafy suburbs.

Getting the 40+% of the vote requires sacrificing a lot of the parties base policies in itself with no guarantee of getting into power. Rather electoral reform lets the labour concentrate it's police, getting rid of the spoiler effect and giving the hostility of most existing third parties to the conservatives let's it have some more breathing room to appealese the broader nation over a narrow focus on certain margin counsticues.

On another note, Lib dems have traditional represented more disaffected rural areas over leafy suburbs. Even the current lib dems  parlimentary cacus has almost half of it's members representing rural seats, rather than suburban seats

if electoral reform is pass labour is going to implode

Would that be such a bad thing, the labour right and left are at each other's throats constantly . An amicable divorce would be an improvement.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Yes this is the critical thing: there is an observable tendency for the total vote of a formal electoral pact to be lower than that which the parties forming it would get on their own no matter the electoral system and it is the case that Con/Lib swing voters are, as a group, a lot more hostile to the Labour Party than average.

I don't understand that, what's the difference between labour/con voters and liberal/con voters demographically? And what makes that group more hostile to labour ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I think it’s worth noting that Con/Lib voters are a pretty small proportion overall of the Lib Dems’ electorate (see Blair’s point about transfers in the Cambridgeshire mayoral election); but where they do exist, they happen to be important in giving the Lib Dems that final push over the top in a number of their key targets.

Well the current party electorate leans left but during the 2015 collapse more of their lost voters went conservative rather labour. And their by election victories have relied heavily on winning over conservative voters.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I can understand both con/lib voters and Lab/con voters, Con/lab voters seem a total mystery. Are these kind of voters more politically disengaged like I'm imagining.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I doubt it'll have much political effect unless the worst happens, covid infections have become too normalized.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

But the MoS this morning has "TORY MPs SAY THIS IS BOJO's FALKLANDS", so......

How much is from Bojo taking a strong pro-ukrain position compared to other European leaders and how much is just the war overshadowing other news.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Has Boris Johnsons been saved by the Russian invasion of Ukraine basically sucking up all the oxygen in terms of public attention ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1505698230692200448
What could be the political advantage of doing this ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

The British Green Party People:

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I do find it strange they tried to use being trans as an excuse for running away from a car accident.