UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So they warned that the first Tory government to preside over an economic downturn would abolish their new social schemes? Was that scaremongering or did things like the NHS becoming immensely popular third rails take them by surprise?

This is actually very interesting. Conservative thinking during the 1945 campaign was heavily influenced by Hayek: The Road to Serfdom had caused a major sensation in intellectual circles on its publication, and much of the rhetoric and arguments Churchill and others used during the campaign can be traced back to it (including his infamous 'Gestapo' speech). At the time of the election, Labour would have had no reason to assume that the Conservatives would, begrudgingly (there was never a 'postwar consensus') accept that they could not roll back most of Labour's policies, and of course the Conservatives really only did so because of genuine shock at the scale of their defeat.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Welsh constituencies are positive proof of the need to Bring Back the Welsh Sunday, even if only for people serving on boundary commissions.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Welsh constituencies are positive proof of the need to Bring Back the Welsh Sunday, even if only for people serving on boundary commissions.

They should be forced to live in Llangollen with no access to the outside world for a year.

Portmeirion.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes, the rules plus the reduction in seats was always going to result in a messy and unhappy map, but there are some details that really do go beyond that and speak of a sort of romantic ignorance. The cross-Berwyns constituency is genuinely mad and easily avoidable.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The real answer at this point seems to be reducing Powys to one seat entirely within Powys with bits on the edges carved out to other areas. That would be unpopular for obvious reasons, however.

I can guarantee you that what they've done is not popular either. Two observations I would make: the first is that the numbers work for 'Montgomery & Radnor' if you wish to go down that route, and that if you want to try something else, the concept of Mid Wales is as real as that as that of North Wales and South Wales (and is much more real than 'West Wales' which isn't really a thing) and has nothing to do with language.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Incidentally, I really do recommend a visit to Portmeirion if any of you get the chance. It's a strange, wonderful little place, and I don't think that just because of happy childhood memories, even if they help .

[Filuwaúrdjan]

David Cameron's infinite capacity for extreme pettiness is at the root of a surprising number of things Wrong with the country by this point.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The only issue would be that if you wanted to cross the river, then you'd probably want to add Machynlleth as well.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It has had by far the steepest drop in quality of any of the 'broadsheet' papers. It used to prize itself on its extremely high standards (e.g. Caradog Prichard was a sub-editor during the postwar period!) and this was a major sales-point even for people who disagreed with its politics. Under Conrad Black's ownership its editorial line shifted hard to the Right(though it was always a Conservative paper, of course), but the quality of its news coverage and analysis remained very high, while its sports coverage was widely admired and the features were decent as well. But after the Barclay Brothers bought it... oh dear.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It was going to be an interesting contest anyway: even before this it was generally thought to be a much more vulnerable seat than quite a few with more recent Labour success.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Apparently after the success of boat week next week will be health week for the Government and Barclay will write to the Welsh Government to say the NHS is broken in Wales.

I feel this is the sort of political tactic that worked in say 2013 to blunt the edges of Labour but does it really work when the waiting list is 7.5 million and growing?

Quite. It doesn't work in England, because people can see for themselves the situation there, and it doesn't work in Wales as the government there can rightly point out that they can only manage with the resources they are given. And, also, that there is a significant overlap between NHS services in Wales and England anyway: problems in the latter will always end up hitting the former as well.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There's another rational, local government related reason for going for next May: they have a lot of very vulnerable seats up in 2025 including on the county councils and it would be better to have this set of locals as deep into the term of the new Parliament as possible.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I can’t recall if that was the election Letwin made some stupid claim about spending and essentially got locked in a cupboard for the whole campaign. What a funny man- really the julius Nicholson of the Tory Party.

Yes, it was that election. I remember it well!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Peter Wilby, who was the editor of the New Statesman 1998-2005 having previously also edited the Independent on Sunday (1995-6), has been convicted making indecent images of children.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Under the circumstances, 'descendants of John Gladstone' would be more accurate.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Under the circumstances, 'descendants of John Gladstone' would be more accurate.

William Ewart Gladstone did nothing wrong.

I wouldn't go quite that far, but the wrong he did was lesser, was motivated purely by filial piety and he recanted and repented once he became the man we know him for being. He actually broke with his father over the issue when he was still alive, and there was a very public quarrel between the two over it.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A fairly important difference is that Reid was a competent and capable administrator (whatever else people might think of him), whereas this is not something that Shapps can be plausibly described as being, except in comparison to certain of his Cabinet colleagues.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This was seen as a very competent skill among Boris’s allies which tbf it was considering it was one of Johnson’s own Praetorian who managed to end his premiership.

Much like the actual Praetorian Guard. If Johnson were as good a Classicist as he has always liked to imply, he'd have known that.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

People believed in Modernity then. Enough people, anyway.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

People believed in Modernity then. Enough people, anyway.

Strangely there seems to be a lot of the schools in Essex and the North East for some reason.

Because government (cowardly poltroons etc) have refused to release the list, we only know from what has been reported independently. So on the one hand it may just be that, for whatever reason, heads in those areas have been unusually keen to contact the media (esp. the BBC) to confirm that they're on it, but it could also relate to particular patterns of contractors.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Hilary Benn is back: will be Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary. An interesting decision for a number of reasons.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

He's too old FFS, is there really no rising talent that could be found to do that job?

It strikes me as similar to Blair bringing in a few Wilson/Callaghan era figures as ministers for a couple of years after 1997.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Expect the Tories to run with this every day until the election - if they are allowed to.

That wouldn't be a very good idea: plenty of local authorities with Conservative administrations have done the same thing, and the specific millstone around Birmingham CCs neck - the equal pay fiasco - was a problem when the Conservatives last ran the council in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. That administration ran the show from 2004 until 2012 and the first defeat over the issue in the courts was in 2010 and the final one in 2012, just a few months after it had lost office.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes, but who cares about Northants in comparison?

(outside Northants, anyway)

I'm not saying they will get away with it if they do it, or even that it is a good idea - but you can see how a by now increasingly desperate party might be tempted.

Well, they can hardly be accused of having good judgment at present. The other issue, of course, is that the 'Ford to City: Drop Dead' look isn't actually a very good one either.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

British stereotypes about New Zealand still reflect how the country was before Rogernomics (and, no, we didn't notice that it was in a structural economic crisis either) and if people are away of that whole period, the tendency is to assume that our fellow post-socialist state had a Thatcher-to-Blair experience like we did, but perhaps a little nicer. Ah well.