UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So they're not getting the campervan back, then?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Elements in the Liberal Party of old were once strongly in favour of the prohibition of alcohol. There are strong arguments for and against severe restrictions on tobacco sales - now that we know what we know, now that consumption is doing to a relatively small minority etc - both based in the liberal political tradition.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

On another aside I was recently doing some research (a fun sunday!) which involved reading some autobiogs of famous stage & TV actors and quite surprised me how many were Conservatives; I wondered if this was just an anti-tax thing from the 60s, or if there was some reason?

Social background in some cases (why would a man like Rex Harrison, whose father was a Lancashire cotton broker back when that meant something, not have been a Conservative?), tax issues in quite a few cases (Peter Sellers being the obvious one), and in the case of those who came up through Variety something older and more tribal: the old Liberals never liked disreputable entertainment, and the Labour Party was as much (after a certain point - the populist turn of Jeremy Thorpe I suppose - more) of an heir to all that than what was left of the Liberal Party. Against that, of course, there were always actors with normal Labour and Liberal opinions and a certain group on the harder Left. There's also the curious fact that some well-known actors of the period who one might have assumed were Conservatives were not: Alec Guinness for instance.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Incidentally, there are signs that Guinness may have been One Of Us, so to speak: his (delightful) published diaries indicate that he followed elections quite seriously, even local elections, and seemingly for their own sake.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Poulter has previously expressed support for pay rises during NHS strikes a couple of times, but otherwise didn’t seem especially moderate or outspoken to the degree that a defection looked likely. Then again, Wakeford wasn’t either.

That's the exact profile of someone who needs to be watched as a possible jumper, or at least would be under any half-decent whipping operation. Someone who sounds off a lot generally won't go, or at least won't go to a major party.* Someone who quietly mutters opposition to the government stance on a major issue...

_{*This is why during the second half of the New Labour government Labour whips cheerfully spread false rumours about MPs who would never defect to the Conservatives (Frank Field was a favourite. He would never, could never, have done it, but often criticized government policy from a socially conservative direction, and was thus perfect) whenever there were indications that others might.}

[Filuwaúrdjan]

lol

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Laughter aside, a major issue is simply that Sunak has all of the very late Richard Crossman's faults without any of his good points. Crossman used to correct the grammar of his civil servants, and by all accounts Sunak treats his MPs in a similar manner: he believes himself to be much more intelligent than anyone else in the room and has a compulsion to show it in a way that often involves humiliating other people.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I think she's going for the Substacker vote in the post-GE leadership poll...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I think she's going for the Substacker vote in the post-GE leadership poll...

Do explain.....

Wouldn't you rather be left in your blissful innocence?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Ordinarily that sort of briefing would mean that the Conservative Whips Office is either a) feeling paranoid and has decided to spook any would-be jumper into getting cold feet or that b) it has been yelled at by a paranoid No. 10 and is therefore doing the same as a) in order to stop the shouting. I say 'ordinarily' as they've really not been good at even the basics of their jobs for quite a while now.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Plaid were only ever going to remain in this rather odd little arrangement until the new electoral system was approved (and have been signalling as such quite clearly for a while), because their leader is on the party's right-wing and was never comfortable with the arrangement to start with. You need to be careful with media coverage of devolved politics in Wales, most of it isn't at all neutral.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Also means Hannah Blythyn, who Gething fired for ‘leaking’, might end up with a deciding vote, if Plaid and the solitary Lib Dem aren’t willing to bail him out. Guess he’s found himself his very own Ash Regan!

She remains part of the Labour Group and a confidence vote would obviously be a whipped matter and to vote against the government in one would be career ending (she has no profile). It isn't the same sort of situation at all.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Never fully trusted him tbh, he came across as overweeningly ambitious for the top job in itself rather than because he had any idea of what to actually do with it.

Well the thing is he actually has done things already, but that as they involve rowing back on some of the more controversial measures that Drakeford pushed through towards the end, this will only have aggravated certain individuals in the Group and one in particular (and that one is not, to be clear, the former FM).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

By the way, it should also be noted that a Conservative MS is under police investigation for potentially fiddling her expenses. There's a reason why Davies is huffing and puffing even more hot air than usual over Gething.