UK General Discussion: Rishecession

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The only way reform gets numbers is if they recruit boris himself (who is very unpopular, but still has a personal fanbase that could paper up the fact that Boris'd policies often clash with the reform zealots in practice).

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Reforms crap results in bolton local by elections suggest that if there is a big reform sentiment amongst the old UKIP base they aren't exactly enthused voters.

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I doubt there will be an early election because they would have replaced Hunt by now, unless he's been pursuaded to stay.

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Would it be a complete philistine remark to ask if we could just comission our own replica to put in the museum?

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It's funnier than that because King Brian takes a different line on these things and so is being very open - he has a grossly enlarged prostate and is having corrective surgery to fix it - whereas it's the usual tight-lipped euphemistic language about the 'planned abdominal surgery' for the Princess of Wales.

He should have said it was his anus horribilis

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Post Office Scandal is marching on: the former head of the Post Office is alleging he was deliberately instructed to delay payments to victims so Tories can "limp to election" with as much liquidity as possible. This would implicate Badenoch if it is true, and she has already delivered a denial on twitter.

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Bridgen appeared to call for vaccine researchers to be put to death in the Commons this afternoon.

He’s definitely getting worse - you’d hope there was someone who could intervene, before he does or says something that causes legitimate harm to himself or others.

I suppose you've seen the interview his wife just made where she talks about how she and her son are now homeless after she tried to confront her husband about not seeing his son in hospital because he was too busy attending an anti-vax conference?

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There's no right time to call an election.

Reform is an itch that won't yet, go away and the PM risks defections from MP's likely to lose their seats anyway.

Major had eighteen months or so of relative party stability, economic growth and a recovering poll position. The Tories have nothing like that now.

Going after the locals in May just risks a bloodbath with activists just when they are needed.

But if they are heavily defeated in a May GE, they will lose shedloads of council seats anyway (don't forget when most of the seats were last contested, after all) The "Tories have to go in May because councillors" thing is heavily overplayed by some.

And they still have money, and so can pay people to deliver their stuff at the end of the day.

I bet Andy Street, for one, is not hoping for a may general election.

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I'm starting to think the reform bounce means sunak may be dumped. I'm not particularly convinced that Reform is intended to be a real party but an external pressure group on the conservative party. If we start seeing "shock polls" putting reform on a similar level as the conservative party, the party will move out of self-preservation to restore the same sort of unofficial pact that Reform's predecessor parties often had, which would almost assuredly involve ditching sunak for somone on the Right.

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It might be hard for foreigners to understand this but literally people don't talk about Brexit any more. It's not popular, but no-one really cares and it definitely isn't hurting the Tories - they do that well enough themselves.

Maybe not, but I think it’s a mistake by the Conservatives to not to talk about it, as big a pile of fecal matter it have been, it has been the only real success of the Conservatives. Yes, it won’t let them win the election, but it may remind some of their potential voters that they delivered on their promises.

If sunak couldn't even manage to remind tory voters he supported brexit from the begining unlike Truss, I doubt he can do it here. Besides the credit given for tories was largely "now we can stop banging on about it" so not really something you can continually bring up.

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The genius of Cummings’ and Johnson’s “Get Brexit Done” slogan wasn’t in its appeal to hardcore Brexiteers (most of whom were fully behind the Tories by the end of 2019), but rather in its appeal to a huge swathe of the country, Leaver and Remainer alike, who were absolutely sick of the issue and never wanted to hear about it again. When you think about it, it wasn’t exactly a positive endorsement of the policy.

Despite Starmer’s obvious deep aversion to Brexit, Labour can clearly see there’s absolutely no point in dredging up the issue. If the Tories want to do so then that’s their prerogative, but it would be a textbook definition of fighting the last war.

Yes, but right now they’re losing the next war disastrous, pulling up the old gimmicks can at least limit the loss.

If I was the conservatives, I would:

1: Replace Sunak* and hold an election fast, before the new leader’s skeletons came out of the closet.
2: Focus on promising to keep UK out of the EU, promises new tax cuts, stopping immigration etc.

The point is no longer to win, but to avoid being decimated.

*People says that Sunak is the least bad option, but I think people ignore the racist vote. A reason in my opinion  why the Conservatives can’t get votes back from Reform, is likely because Sunak is South Asian. Yes, I know the British says no one cares about Sunak’s color because he’s upper class, but
I don’t believe it. I think no one says it out loud, because it’s socially unacceptable to say it.

Another leadership farce and doubling down on issues the voters are loudly refusing to care about during a cost of living crisis? And you think that'll improve the situation?
...on the other hand this is basically what happened with Gillard/Rudd so maybe the Australian advisors will take the inspiration and run with it.

If Johnson was still in parliament I'm almost certain the tory party would have to do a kevin rudd reinstallation through gritted teeth to save the furniture, even though they hate Boris even more than the faceless men hated Rudd. A lot of parallels tbh (although rudd is obviously a better person than Boris).

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I agree with that, but quitting removed any chance of him remaining relevant.

(in the near future at least)

If he was healthier and in a better financial situation i could even see him running as an independent somewhere and trying to rebuild his career that way.

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Is Jacob Rees-Mogg going to defect next?

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A lot of Tories seem very *very* unhappy about this - not least because they had been told just a few weeks ago that this definitely wasn't happening, and several made plans accordingly.

So how plausible are the rumor that some Tory MPs want to oust Sunak and undo the call for an election?

I cannot imagine a situation that would hurt the Tories more than that one occuring, though.

Even if they ousted sunak, a rebellion of that size would almost immediately cause a VONC and elections anyway.