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

[Blair]

Spending review today, arguably most notable thus far for the BBC's paid government stenographer Laura Kuenssberg disgracing herself maybe more than ever before.

A reminder that she falsely claimed that a Labour activist had assaulted Tory staffers during the election; a story that saved the Conservatives from their worse day of press in the campaign.

That alone was a baffling & sackable offence; I'm not often one to join the whole 'the BBC is too right wing etc' brigade but she's absolutely useless & the only plausible defence for this 'well the country is like a credit card' comment is that she's dense enough to actually think it.

There's a chronic failure to understand or appreciate economics in British Politics (I say this as a history graduate!)

[Blair]

This is basically a fudge A.) To allow us to transition to the Christmas Arrangements B.) Avoid splitting the tory party any further* C.) Trick MPs into doing what they're told.

*Of course we're only having a vote because the previous rebellion meant the Government agreed in september that MPs would get a vote every time there was a big national policy decision like this. Starmer & Labour are never going to join the anti-lockdown group on the Tory backbenches but they were happy to rebel over issues that can be described as about 'oversight'.

I'm getting a bit tired of seeing the Tory MPs who accept that we need restrictions but don't want restrictions near their seats while complaining about the impact on businesses while not really supporting a larger/smarter economic response.

I saw someone joke that if these MPs were councillors they're be wanting the tier system done by wards...

[Blair]

In a more boring expansion this crisis has shown the general woefulness of whitehall/Parliament; the emergency legislation written for this sort of event was apparantly not used because it was not fit for purpose, there still isn't a central Parliamentary body to scruntise the Governments response to covid & the public procurement process is such a joke that it's taken 4-5 months for relatively powerful public bodies like the Public Accounts Committee & NAO to actually lift the hood on it (and that's all it's done; lifted the hood)

I'm not at all an expert in good goverance/transparency etc but some of the stories in the last week seem to show for me that we're moving towards having dodgy public contracts/spending being added to the wonderful pot of our political failures as a nation.

[Blair]

Ironically he was getting praised at the dispatch box last week as the 'sensible' metro Mayor...

[Blair]

Ha I love how the press (at least via twitter) appear to be taking quite a well brave approach.

All I will say is that the flaw in the Labour Party is that people don't seem to ever actually leave it's orbit

[Blair]

Hatton was never allowed back in, was he?

he came very close

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47312006

[Blair]

Yeah; I had been more confident of one, then after the Wednesday call it I thought it might fall through but yeah it appears very likely now.

[Blair]

I believe the current plan to save the Union consists of putting the union flag on the vaccine & getting Michael Gove to shuffle papers around in Whitehall if that fills anyone with confidence.

[Blair]

Did anyone see that absolute bonkers speech by Liz Truss?

The part that has got attention was some rant about how the problem with Britain was that she was taught about Foucalt at school in the 1980s but wasn't taught how to read? Along with some rubbish about how New Labour/Cameron cared about the wrong sort of equality issues.

I honestly don't know what was more worrying; the fact that this is the Secretary of State for Equalities saying this or the fact that it was so obviously just playing to the Gallery

Random question but why does Boris Johnson get seen in high vis vests so much? Is he trying to make a subconscious point about linking himself with construction and economic growth?

All politicians are guilty of it but Boris as Mayor of London had a love for grand infrastructure projects but had no love for actually putting in the required effort (which is pretty much a theme of most parts of his life)

[Blair]

The most interesting thing you get to see after nearly 10 years of Government is which politicians are happy to bend to the wind, undergo multiple personality & get shuffled around various jobs- all so that they can stay at the table.

[Blair]

The main takeaway I get from the reaction to this is that people are generally tired/fed-up & not interested; if you're a business who needs access to the Single Market you've known for 3+ years this is the destination, if you wanted to remain you've known this would happen since December 13th etc etc.

I think the genuine worry created in the last week over our ports means that for a lot of people any deal is better than a bad one; there's a bit of a rearguard to get Labour to abstain on it but it seems like more of a rearguard than anything; the only strong argument for Labour to abstain is party unity & just avoiding a fight.

I've always thought that Labour should either vote for the deal or vote it down; I can't see the benefits that abstaining brings at all.

[Blair]

We have plenty of other nasty social divisions that cut in very different directions. This is not the United States, do not assume that your pathologies and politics offer any clue as to ours.

Funny, I wasn't aware that that's what I was doing? It just seems like a pretty big problem for Labour when most of those Red Wall voters are socially conservative in their outlook & Labour looks like it has nothing to offer them because it's more focused on the vocal but diminutive-in-number metropolitan membership that has mainly been focused on social justice issues (which those Red Wall voters probably consider to be trivial) & internal squabbles.

I don't think this is true but it's very understandable how this is now seen as common knowledge. Tory MPs in these seats constantly claim the same thing- which is that 'my voters in [insert town]' have one universal view on all issues; the most recent debate on a deportation flight saw lots of Tory MPs standing up saying 'well my voters in [...] simply don't care about the government illegally deporting criminals'. There's a danger that both the media & the new Tory intake seem to be creating a myth around these seats & there voters.*

Labour for what it's worth still run campaigns that are focused on the same political issues; NHS funding, police funding, school cuts & the need for social housing- these were the four bullet points on our election leaflets & this was in a pro-remain London seat!

Local campaigns in the safe seats we lost in 2019 were focused on this even more; it was always an unfair criticism of Corbyn that his era of leadership was somehow only spent talking about issues that were seen as 'niche' (although this is not a new problem- Wilson thought that legalising homosexual acts would cost Labour 4 million votes!)

When we hear about the clash between Labours 'metropolitian' membership & its 'real heartland voters' it's worth remembering that this is a debate that the party has been having for decades. When the Leader of the party is trusted & the party/economy is doing well we don't hear about this being an issue because it's extremely possible for Labour to keep this coalition going if it is doing well- a rising tide & all that.

I mean the only issue where we can see Labour members actually changing the parties policy & costing us votes was with a pro-Kashmir motion that was passed by conference & which was used to spread a lot of anger into the British Hindu community.

This isn't at all to say that there aren't big problems for Labour in these seats; the party has on 3/4 of the last elections completely failed to win over voters in these sort of seats; I'd actually say that the issues that are often bought up was immigration & welfare/benefits- although Labour tried to run to the right on both ehse issues in 2015 and it completely failed.



*With the 'red wall' seats it's worth dividing them up into three groups 1.) Those which were historic marginals (Darlington) 2.) Those which have been losing chunks of their Labour majority for years & which are naturally hard for the party on paper (Mansfield) 3.) Those which have never given any hint as supporting the Tories (e.g Leigh)

[Blair]

I saw this so I wondered.
https://twitter.com/BameFor/status/1342495556732649478

FWIW I'd be dubious of this; re-introduction of capital punishment would be an issue for the Ministry of Justice not the Home Office and a 'policy paper' seems a strange way of phrasing it.

There's also a lot of much lower hanging fruit in the realms of law and order which they actually want to change & which they'd be required to work on in Parliament.

[Blair]

They also don't have a majority for this in the House of Lords (or in the commons, or even their own MPs)

[Blair]

One of the post election report found that the Tories managed to drag out 2 million 'new' voters in 2019 who didn't vote in 2017- and a big chunk of these were habitual non voters. I remember reading that one of the Leave campaign successes was turning out people who hadn't voted for years ... so this would certainly suggest that it was only Boris who would be able to turn these people out again.

Almost half of these previously abstaining Conservative voters had voted Leave
in 2016; most of the rest were habitual non-voters. They had a balanced mix of
ages and social grades, and were spread right across the nations and regions, with
greater concentrations in the West Midlands, Yorkshire and Humberside and the
South West, and fewer in Scotland, London and Wales. Only a small fraction had
voted Labour at previous elections since 2010.

In 2017, the Tories were hoping to win the votes of people who hadn't voted in 2015 but voted Leave in 2016 and were disappointed. Anecdotally, a lot of them turned out in 2019 whereas the people who voted Labout with qualms in 2017 did not in 2019.

This is true; as I said in my previous post a lot of 2019 seats Labour lost had seen chunks of their majority get skimmed off in 2017; but a combination of factors in that election saved them.

If you look at the lavish briefings in early days of the 2017 GE about the seats the Tories were targetting (West Brom East, Bolsover) most of these actually ended up flipping in 2017; with the added caveat that in 2017 there was terror that the marginals in remain seats would flip as well.

I mean if you want a demostration in the variation we've got seats that had a +400 vote majority for Labour in 2015 which saw 10Ks majority in 2019, while seats with a Labour majority of 20K in 2015 now have Tory majorities of 3-4K

[Blair]

An open question; how true is it that by voting for the deal Labour are giving up any chance to either A.) avoid the blame for Brexit B.) criticise the outcomes of the deal?

I've seen quite a lot of people over the last few days say that Labour need to abstain as otherwise they lose the right to criticise the deal but my reading of opposition politics for the last 25+ years is that the opposition is virtually never held responsible for a failure of the Government

[Blair]

The Honours List has come out.

Lewis Hamilton's knighthood is definitely a deserved one.

He's been knighted in the overseas section irrc because he's based in Monocco for tax purposes.

He's hardly the first British sportsmen to have done this however.

[Blair]

The London decision was baffling; I realise I'm going down another topic but it seems striking that England has struggled a lot compared to other countries who operate a federal system, in the sense that political leaders can't easily justify the borders of divergence & the public don't understand why they're in.

There was some gripping in Scotland & Wales based on the changes over the last year but people understood A.) Why it was being done B.) Where the idea came from. The one ray of fortune before was that they've avoided the tempation (and begging from outer london tories) to split the capital up into sections... until now.

I would have also hoped the DofE would have known how many london secondary school kids (and a lesser extent primary kids) travel across borough to get to school; it's something around 20%!

[Blair]

In news it looks likely we'll have what is being called Tier 5 but what that will actually involve gods know!

[Blair]

The most baffling thing is that Williamsom wasn't sacked in the summer or given a job that actually uses his skills.

This should have happened after the A-Levels fiasco; a policy that emerged because he ignored the advice of officals from Ofqual & warnings from Heads/MPs. Much like with Grayling he has developed a reputation of incompetence; which means that everything going wrong with the DofE sticks to him.

It also shows Johnson's failure to manage his own cabinet/party; this Government knows that Jacob Rees-Mogg only has value in setting the parliamentary timetable so they made him Leader of the House- surely Williamson should have been given party chair/Chief Whip at the least.

It's interesting that both he & Grant Shapps were given jobs because they delievered votes for Boris in the leadership race; Shapps (who was a glorified party hack in the Cameron years) has actually been one of the higher performers of the cabinet (a low bar though)

[Blair]

The most baffling thing is that Williamsom wasn't sacked in the summer or given a job that actually uses his skills; 

He does in fact have some?

He was seen as a half decent chief whip; although a lot of that was because he jumped ship the moment that Theresa May started losing her authority in the commons.

[Blair]

I just realized what Boris did with the cycling is pretty similar to what our Health Minister was forced to resign for. Except he went 20km and it was mountain biking. Still, politicians shouldn't be bending or breaking the rules that they're setting for everyone else.

My deeply unpopular view was that he wasn't actually breaking the rules; the Government has kept the guidance vague & even then it's still only 'guidance' (something the police don't understand)

Assuming that he didn't stop it wasn't a huge breach... but obviously should have been setting an example about staying at home

[Blair]

In other news, Johnson and the government are busy sulking because Labour has the temerity to use parliamentary "opposition days" in a way that might somewhat inconvenience them

And claimed that the abuse that MPs got for opposing free school lunches last time was akin to the storming of the capitol!

It's quite funny as this is clearly the second card to play- the last time they packed the debate & basically did two footed tackles on Labour (accusing them of wanting to nationalise children) and basically tried to throw sh**t around.

A Tory MP topped it off by saying to businesses handing out free lunches to kids 'well I suppose we can have your business grant money back then'.

They're now back to the Theresa May era tactic of abstaining- which lets Labour say 'Parliament voted against this cut'.

The third & expected step is to either cut off the vote at the end (as that happens with backbench business debates) or just stop holding opposition day debates- something that I expect Prime Minister Rayner will enjoy in 2027!

[Blair]

I think the fact that the GLC was abolished because it 'got in the way' shows that we have a rather complex relationship with devolded power in this country.

[Blair]

I mean, the UK is still bizarrely centralised for such a large and regionally diverse country, so I’m not sure even more (re-)centralisation is the way to go. Federalism doesn’t seem to work too badly for Germany or Switzerland. By the way, if you want to reduce the SNP’s influence in a legitimate, democratic manner, get rid of FPTP, which allows them to win 80% of Scottish Westminster seats on 45% of the vote.

It's never a bad moment to do that.

Of course last time you tried to do that it was rejected everywhere outside of Inner London, Central Edinburgh, Central Glasgow and Oxbridge... though I am not sure whether AV would change the seat distribution in Scotland that much unless there's a heck of a Unionist tactical vote?
As a slight aside, is proportional representation perceived as, ahem, un-British in the UK?

I think the results of not having PR or even AV have shaped our political culture in a number of important ways- mainly that the two large parties don't feel a need to do anything other than get ahead of the other (or in the Conservatives case get a large enough buffer between them & Labour+SNP+Lib Dem in recent years)

It's actually funny as the 2015 election was the one that was most dominated by the spectre of a non-majority government; the entire campaign was dominated by stories about A.) Will Labour sell out England to get SNP votes B.) What will the Lib Dems trade/cut from the main partiess... and the electorate answered by giving the Conservatives a majority.

I feel like it's a subject that most people don't care about- hence why the attack against AV in 2011 was 'why are we spending time on this when [issue you care about] needs to be fixed'. I believe there was a poster with a soldier saying he needs body armour not an AV vote... if you kept the constituency link (something that if fetished by MPs & politicians but honestly how many normal people know their MP?) I think the system could be changed without any hassle.