UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[oldtimer]

Replicating the American Senate in the UK will probably be a good idea, just without filibusters and with shorter terms.

It would have prevented the breakup of the British Empire, since people on some god-forsaken terrirory (like Ireland, Scotland) would have gotten more attention by London, instead of letting them rot.

Of course the UK being a lot smaller would probably only need 20 Senators, I can easily find 19 just using this:

2 from N.Ireland
2 from S.Wales
2 from N.Wales
2 from N.England
2 from S.England
2 from London
2 from Midlands
2 from Scottish Lowlands
2 from Scottish Highlands.
1 from Territories and Crown Lands.

England total 8
Scotland total 4
Wales total 4
Ireland total 2
Rest 1

A simple 8,4,2,1 from largest to smallest.

In political terms you would expect depending on the political weather:
Conservatives: 2-12 Seats.
Labour: 4-12.
LD: 0-2
SNP: 0-4
Irish Unionists: 0-2
Irish Nationalists: 0-2

[oldtimer]

Replicating the American Senate in the UK will probably be a good idea, just without filibusters and with shorter terms.

It would have prevented the breakup of the British Empire, since people on some god-forsaken terrirory (like Ireland, Scotland) would have gotten more attention by London, instead of letting them rot.

Of course the UK being a lot smaller would probably only need 20 Senators, I can easily find 19 just using this:

2 from N.Ireland
2 from S.Wales
2 from N.Wales
2 from N.England
2 from S.England
2 from London
2 from Midlands
2 from Scottish Lowlands
2 from Scottish Highlands.
1 from Territories and Crown Lands.

England total 8
Scotland total 4
Wales total 4
Ireland total 2
Rest 1

A simple 8,4,2,1 from largest to smallest.

In political terms you would expect depending on the political weather:
Conservatives: 2-12 Seats.
Labour: 4-12.
LD: 0-2
SNP: 0-4
Irish Unionists: 0-2
Irish Nationalists: 0-2

Ireland received a very great deal of attention from Westminster in the decades prior to partition.

Not in a good way though.

[oldtimer]

1992 comparisons are made more absurd by the fact that Sunak is no John Major, whose personal appeal at the time was a plus (and even at the lowest point later on, he still polled better than his party and would-be successors). I mean, can anyone imagine Sunak campaigning in the soapbox?

It also doesn't help that Starmer, unlike Kinnock, is not damaged goods - not yet anyway, and likely not by the time of the election - on account of having been LOTO for too long or having the tabloids mercilessly tear him apart on a regular basis.

A simple comparison between Major 1992 and Sunak today:

Major, working class (in theory), chancellor for a few months only, consensus successor to Thatcher, only mess: joining the ERM (would bite later).

Sunak, upper class (comes off as retarded too), chancellor for 2.5 years, couldn't even beat Liz Truss, a bad record: implementing Boris's failed policies, he owns the recession.

Sunak is basically Nick Clegg with a tan, probably with similar results.

[oldtimer]

At the end of the day, the "this is 1992 all over again" cope is based on one actual fact and one only - that Starmer's personal ratings are a lot less impressive than Blair's pre-1997.

But arguably, that just shows how Mr Tony was an unrepeatable one-off.

SKS is also clearly doing better than Kinnock was in the *actual* pre-1992 period, and in *certain* respects the Tories are currently doing worse than before the 1997 GE never mind 1992.

The only 2 reasons for caution:

Labour are not doing as good as 1995, the lead is about 10 points less.
The British economy is much worse than 1995.

The comparison should be with 2015, not 1997.

Labour's lead is about 15 points larger than 2013.
There is no Farage to split the working class vote.
The British economy is doing about the same as 2013.

Labour's comfort is that Sunak had aquired the reputation of a tanned version of Bertie Wooster even before he became PM.

[oldtimer]

At the end of the day, the "this is 1992 all over again" cope is based on one actual fact and one only - that Starmer's personal ratings are a lot less impressive than Blair's pre-1997.

But arguably, that just shows how Mr Tony was an unrepeatable one-off.

SKS is also clearly doing better than Kinnock was in the *actual* pre-1992 period, and in *certain* respects the Tories are currently doing worse than before the 1997 GE never mind 1992.

The only 2 reasons for caution:

Labour are not doing as good as 1995, the lead is about 10 points less.
The British economy is much worse than 1995.

I wouldn't have thought the latter was a reason for Tory *optimism*, though.

The rationale is that if Labour are ahead by 25 with an economy this bad, if the economy recovers Labour will be in danger.

The Conservatives easily cut Labour's lead by 15-20 points in 1996-97 and 2014-15 thanks to the economy.

But Sunak and Hunt are still sticking to old Boris policies that caused the economic gloom in the first place.

[oldtimer]

The polling in the runup to 1997 should be treated with caution. The way they designed polls back then lead to a huge labor bias.

Can't really compare them to modern polling that has a much better track record.

Why did it lead to be a big Labour bias?

You had a phenomenon of "shy Tories", voters who would tell the pollsters they were undecided but in fact planned to vote Tory.

Not really.

Turnout was a record low in both 1997 and 2001 because a lot of Conservative voters went on strike and didn't vote at all, Labour even got fewer votes in 2001 than 1992.

The pollsters in 1992 were off because they hadn't yet accounted for the 1991 census, they were still using the demographics of the 1981 census.

[oldtimer]

William Hague had a very good article and I think others have said it’s a mistake to see everything as either 1992 or 1997- the result could easily fall in the middle and is broadly what I expect.

If anything at this rate I think it turns out worse than 1997 for the Tories.

If the economy doesn't turn around or they don't change leader it probably will.

At very low party levels a plain swingometer won't work well because of the 0% barrier.
The model used by Electoral Calculus would be more accurate.

At a 25 point lead even Sunak's seat will be very close according to Electoral Calculus, with just 64 seats left.

[oldtimer]

What the hell happened to the Tories to make them so comically unserious?

Thatcher may have been evil, but she was deadly serious. It almost seems as if the UK Conservative Party looked across the pond at Tea Party/MAGA era Republicans and said to themselves, “we need more of that.”

Or is this simply the consequence of Cameron pandering to the Farage wing of the Tories, May relying on the DUP to “get Brexit done”, Johnson being PM (nuff’ said), and Truss going SubReaganomics Accelerationist on the British pound, all of which has made Sunak being effective at his job a very tall order indeed.

It's a very long story that started with the merger of the Liberals with the Conservatives in the 1920's.

Basically ever since then the Liberal-Conservative MP's and the Conservative-Conservative MP's are always at war within the Conservative Party over it's control.

That periodically leads to it's self-destruction leaving Britain in ruins.

Remember: House of Cards was written by Thatcher's chief of staff based on real things he experienced, it's not exactly fiction.

[oldtimer]

Im very very confused why there’s talk of Truss relaunching some weird backbench group of 50 MPs.

Do they really not remember what she did to their opinion polling and how awful she was? I was believed she needed to stay in post for much longer purely so the party could actually get it into their thick skull how awful her project was.

John Rentoul of all people wrote a  "Was Liz Truss right" article a few days ago.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/liz-truss-tax-cuts-rishi-sunak-b2272880.html

Imagine how badly Sunak's doing for his arch supporters to regret it so much that Liz Truss starts to look better by comparison.

Which is not surprising, Sunak is so bad the only way he could win the post of PM was being the only candidate.

[oldtimer]

A thing that needs to be kept in mind:

There will probably be a No-Confidence vote against Sunak in November, the threshold for that has already probably been reached given that it's relatively low, but it cannot trigger in the first year.

Of course the Chairman of the 1922 committee can make things up, to either delay or force the leader out.

Given that he stiched the last contest for Sunak, I guess he sits on the no-confidence letters  like he did with Cameron, May, and Boris, until his own position is threatened (his seat is a gonner at these polling levels).

[oldtimer]

Graham Brady has found out that he is on course to lose his own seat.
https://twitter.com/TelePolitics/status/1622086582466498561

When you consider changing the rules to force the leader out you know it's bad, he did the same with May and Boris just before they were ousted.

So lets make a new UK Conservative Leadership Election 2023 thread, just in case.

[oldtimer]

To many that would say "oh no not another leadership election" the answer is simple.

You need leadership elections to find out which candidate is in practice the better campaigner to lead your party in an election.

May and Sunak were appointed and turned out crap in record time, despite being good on paper.

[oldtimer]

The point is, Tories doing yet another leadership this change this year would - absolutely rightly - be seen as a blatant p*** take by the vast majority of voters.

And if they are still deluding themselves that there is someone out there who could miraculously and magically restore their fortunes, then if anything that makes it worse.

THEY are the problem.

Their economic policies are the problem.

The economy is like a steam train:

It needs plenty of cheap energy to function, cheap technically educated labour to operate, cheap raw materials to manufacture it, and a good cheap transport network to run on.

Government policies in the UK have lead to the reverse of the above, so the economic steam train is stuck.

[oldtimer]

That the SNP is on the rocks everytime Labour are on the upside is to be expected.

The SNP has 3 legs: the Highland Liberals, the N.E. Tories and the Central Belt Socialists.
You remove 2 out 3 and they implode.

But Sturgeon resigning without having a clear successor was a bit surprising, it might indicate the SNP's problems are bigger and getting more serious.

One just doesn't resign like that if they haven't seen a cliff right ahead.

[oldtimer]

Also to add the smell of scandal to Sturgeon's abrupt resignation:
https://twitter.com/ChrisMusson/status/1625843103092408320

[oldtimer]

Forbes would also be the more conservative candidate economically. Which will win plaudits in some quarters but creates difficulties in others.

It would very possibly make the "left of Labour" schtick in the central belt a bit harder to pull off.

It's however very easy to be left of Labour today. Certainly in contrast to 2017 when the SNP got a central belt fright.

Labour's problems electorally, which you can trace back as far as 1987 (relative to rUK) in it's old Scottish heartlands are exactly as they always have been.

Correct.

Labour lost scotland because it drifted too much to the right on the economy under New Labour.

Glasgow with it's extreme poverty has always been a political paradise for socialist politicians.

[oldtimer]

Forbes would also be the more conservative candidate economically. Which will win plaudits in some quarters but creates difficulties in others.

It would very possibly make the "left of Labour" schtick in the central belt a bit harder to pull off.

It's however very easy to be left of Labour today. Certainly in contrast to 2017 when the SNP got a central belt fright.

Labour's problems electorally, which you can trace back as far as 1987 (relative to rUK) in it's old Scottish heartlands are exactly as they always have been.

Correct.

Labour lost scotland because it drifted too much to the right on the economy under New Labour.

Glasgow with it's extreme poverty has always been a political paradise for socialist politicians.

They didn't exactly rebound much when they shifted much further left under corbyn.

Swings to Labour in 2017 :
Glasgow

Glasgow East 12
Glasgow N.E. 13
Glasgow North 11
Glasgow South 10
Glasgow N.W. 9
Coatbridge 13
Rutherglen 9

Edinburgh

Edinburgh East 6
Edinburgh South 14
East Lothian 9
MidLothian 11
Edinburgh North 3 (Labour actually fell)
Edinburgh S.W 4 (Labour actually fell)

In all those seats Labour where 2nd in 2015, and you can see the difference of socialist economic appeal between Glasgow and Edinburgh quite clearly.

[oldtimer]

The argument that Scottish Labour lost because it was insufficiently leftist is undermined by the fact that the SNP isn't either. Scottish Labour lost in 2011 because it was hideously, hilariously incompetent, it lost in 2015 because it was incompetent and unpopular and it's still losing because it's still not viewed as competent, even when the point of comparison is the SNP.

It's incompetence was built in before that as was it's decline. It was just masked by effective leaders (like Dewar) and nationally driven GE rallies (1987 and 1997) that rose all boats.

It's party machine, campaign style, focus and a swathe of it's MSP's were ripped straight from the local council play book and it was ill suited to what the Parliament could do and what it's supporters wanted.

A mistake Welsh Labour (the model of national consciousness the SNP most, underrated-ly, models itself after) never made.

I did have a big effortpost about this somewhere but can't find it.

I’d be very interested in reading it- it’s equally criminal how few people in U.K. labour understand why Welsh Labour has been so effective.

The main difference is that Welsh independence is not credible as Scottish independence.

The main characteristic of British elections is that parties there don't bend they break, especially if given a credible alternative (depending on why voters get angry), and can produce massive swings in just a single election.

[oldtimer]

Has this been mentioned before?

There are some rumors? that Boris Johnson will make a comeback as Conservative leader right before the next election.

It’s an ongoing soap opera within the party. When Truss resigned, Johnson did a whip around, and got somewhere north of 80 backers in the party, although it’s unclear whether he had the 100 MPs he would have needed to run for PM. (He says he had enough but “chose not to run”).

Ever since then, a small band of hardcore loyalists have been making the case for his return. Former minister and party chairman Jake Berry has tried to undermine Sunak, and has stated on several occasions that if Sunak does particularly poorly at the May local election, he would support a move to try and force out the PM. He’s repeatedly stated that he thinks Johnson will be back in office by 2024.

Nadine Dorries is being very on-brand too (in fact, her retirement announcement specifically called other MPs fools for bringing Johnson “one of the most successful PMs” down).

Thing is - there’s likely enough of them to trigger a confidence vote (although one can’t be held until October, without a rules change), but no one thinks there’s enough for Sunak outright lose a confidence vote. So it’s just discontent, rather than a real threat at this stage.

Johnson himself seems to still be holding a pretty hefty grudge, and while happy to rake in cash on the lecture circuit, seems to think he can still make a comeback at some point.

There will probably be a no-confidence vote against Sunak this year.

However no Conservative PM has ever lost such a vote, all of them won just to be kicked out a while later.

The symbolic trigger of a no-confidence vote is an indicator that the PM is on his way out.

[oldtimer]

YouGov have released a Scottish poll (for Westminster) which was conducted just before Sturgeon stood down:

SNP 38 (-7)
Lab 35 (+17)
Con 16 (-9)
LD 5 (-4)
Green 3 (+2)

Changes are since 2019. Usual caveats that you should be sceptical because it's just one poll and even more sceptical because it's one poll showing a big shift, but if those numbers were borne out in reality then most of the Central Belt would flip and Labour and the SNP would be approximately equal in terms of seats.

As I say, I'm sceptical, but I imagine that this is going to have some impact in the discourse.

If scottish independence is not credible the SNP becomes just another Plaid Cymru.

[oldtimer]

Do they think this will be easier after the local elections??

Sunak's a lame duck.

No one wants to negotiate or sign anything with someone who appears to be on his way out.

They will wait for the next one.

[oldtimer]

'Get Brexit Done' meant that the shenanigans seen in 2019 were not supposed to repeat endlessly. If the large majority given to Boris can't even pass that, it's completely useless.

67 isn't that big a majority, compared with some.

True, it's gone down by endless by-election defeats.

[oldtimer]

And Sunak's performance on the Better PM question is similar to that of BoJo from the breaking of Partygate (late 2021) onwards. Quite appalling for a 'safe pair of hands' who is only four months into the job.

https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1628356717456281600?s=20

Makes the argument that Conservative MP's should not have the right to choose their Leader.

[oldtimer]

Makes the argument that Conservative MP's should not have the right to choose their Leader.

Counterpoint - if you take it out of the hands of MPs - it’s all on the membership. And we know where that road leads:

I know, but it's funny the MP's vote has lead to the exact same result, and their electoral record has been a bad one:

Heath 1965: Bad , MP's
Thatcher 1975: Good , MP's
Thatcher 1989: Bad, MP's
Major 1990: Good ,MP's
Major 1995: Bad ,MP's
Hague 1997: Bad ,MP's
I.D.S. 2001: Never tested ,Members
Howard 2003: Bad , MP's
Cameron 2005: Bad , Members
May 2016: Bad ,MP's
May 2018: Bad ,MP's
Boris 2019: Good , Members
Boris 2022: Bad ,MP's
Truss 2022: Bad ,Members
Sunak 2022:Bad ,MP's

So in all leadership elections and no-confidence votes, conservative MP's have voted for a popular figure only in 2 out of 10 (last time 33 years ago), members have voted for a popular figure in 1 out of 3 or 4 (last  time 4 years ago).

In the end they need to ditch their de-growth policies, it won't matter who's the leader if the economy is in a bad shape.

[oldtimer]

It seems Sunak has reopened the can of worms over his new deal with the EU over Northern Ireland.

There where big hopes among Sunak's camp that a deal would revitalize his fortunes, but instead he's done a "Theresa May".

The DUP are saying a loud No.
The Brexiteers are also saying a loud No and there is speculation that a good chunk of the cabinet will resign in protest.

Sunak is now dependant on Labour to pass his EU deal against his own party at a time his party is busy pondering whether to kick him out and install Boris.

It's like February 2019 all over again.