UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Amazing lack of content, so much so that she kept repeating herself endlessly, even though it was not a long speech.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Of course in most of the UK it was basically impossible to have attended a comprehensive in the modern sense from the start of secondary education if you were born before about 1958, which as far as UK PMs goes means either Truss or someone who went to Eton.

Not quite impossible, as you could have gone to comprehensive in the modern sense if you lived in a remote rural area, some of which moved away from selective education in the 1950s on purely pragmatic grounds: Anglesey went fully comprehensive in 1953, for instance. But British politicians who grew up in the deep countryside are not particularly thick on the ground. As you say it's an extremely (deliberately) misleading 'fact'; a rather pathetic attempt to pretend that Truss's privileged background was other than what it was.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What you need to remember is point no. 1 from the Oxford Uni LibDem thing from many decades ago: 'Liz is mad'.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Not all Prime Ministers have actually had them, of course: Churchill didn't the second time around, neither did Eden, Callaghan, Blair or Brown.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It was noted that she would defend civil servants in her department from sillier attacks launched by certain other government ministers.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Maybe he's going to claim that he was ambushed by [REDACTED ON LEGAL ADVICE].

[Filuwaúrdjan]

https://twitter.com/breeallegretti/status/1578456156778872832

How will this go down in the Red Wa..aahahahahahahahahaha oh my God how is any of this real?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You would think these people are deliberately trying to throw the next election.

The only sane conclusion at this point is that she's legitimately still a Lib Dem & is their ultimate anti-Tory sleeper agent.

I refuse to believe this as it implies a level of competence and strategic thought on the part of the LibDems that would be wholly out of character.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

https://twitter.com/OfficialMelB/status/1578487276707143682

But they took me off the morphine well over a month ago, what's happening?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

We don’t have any information yet - but Burns appears to have a history of ‘being handsy’, to quote one article. Several eyewitnesses appear to have reported the incident, or intervened, which doesn’t bode well.

It is also reported that he was so drunk that he had to be escorted back to his hotel by a friend and that he made 'inappropriate comments', so a certain picture is emerging: especially given how carefully circumspect British media tends to be about reporting details of this sort of thing before any formal investigation. An impression more than added to by the fact that his friends are claiming that Burns was not responsible for anything that he did because he was on strong painkillers at the time and these combined poorly with alcohol. Which. Um.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I think more as if some of the nastier and sillier people in the Novara mob were actually senior members of the Shadow Cabinet. Which sounds completely absurd, but, well...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There's a much simpler explanation. She is a Lib Dem, but she's not a sleeper agent, this is just what a lot of early 90s Lib Dems were like in terms of both ideology and competence.

The IEA's Mark Littlewood was o/c a senior LibDem apparatchik until 2009.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I think I'm at the stage where I unironically support Good King Brian doing what his dear uncle would surely have done in this sort of situation. It would be for the best.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yeah see this is the thing: if you have a lead nationally of 25pts or whatever you basically sweep the board or close to it with FPTP. It's been so long since we've had a General Election with a PV lead like that that there's a lack of awareness of what it would mean if we really did actually have one...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I wonder if Truss has a humiliation kink.

Didn't know Popbitch had a Transatlantic audience.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

On a lighter note, a former Deputy Prime Minister has been accused of taking bribes from OnlyFans.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

On a lighter note, a former Deputy Prime Minister has been accused of taking bribes from OnlyFans.

I've had some embarrassing MPs, haven't I?

We may have reached the point where Sheffield Hallam has to be considered in the same bracket as Rochdale, Peterborough, Leicester East and the entire county of Shropshire.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Though very much not part of their clique, Hunt is not so very far removed from Truss and the late Kwarteng on economic matters, which explains the choice. He was also very bad at both previous roles (Culture Secretary, Health Secretary) in which had had significant administrative responsibilities.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Unfortunately Hunt coming in as Chancellor and likely stabilizing of the markets will probably stem the bleeding for the Tories. Still think Labour are favorites but instead of Historic landslide (450+) or Blair landslide (400+) or Johnson victory (375+) - I think you’d see a modest victory with 330 seats or so. So much can change but that’s likely. The wasted worthless SNP votes really hurt Labour

People aren't going to just forget about the time their mortgage payments abruptly skyrocketed.

And the thousands of pounds that millions of people have lost from their pension pots have already been lost. They're gone and can't be recovered. I'd be careful about predicting too much, but the anger over that is not going to fade: why would it? It's a permanent blow, especially if you're working or lower middle class.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Though very much not part of their clique, Hunt is not so very far removed from Truss and the late Kwarteng on economic matters, which explains the choice. He was also very bad at both previous roles (Culture Secretary, Health Secretary) in which had had significant administrative responsibilities.

Foreign Secretary being more of a messaging and narrativizing role?

Yes, in the end it's still a diplomatic post, which requires a very different set of skills.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

https://twitter.com/OOCThickOfIt/status/1580912574778200065

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Interesting. The State Department works very differently, as Rex Tillerson learned the hard way, but I had heard before that the Foreign Office had a much starker division between the political leadership and the career foreign service nuts and bolts.

Yes. Like most of the older Whitehall departments, it retains most of its old Victorian ethos.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I wonder if she'll try to be a limpet now.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If the reports that he has missed out on the rumoured peerage are correct, it hasn't been the best ever 24 hours for Paul "AT LAST A REAL TORY BUDGET!" Dacre has it?

Obviously the scandal makes giving him a Peerage politically impossible by this point, but, yes, lol.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

They also gained a seat in Leicester where Labour nominated a Hindu nationalist in a majority-Muslim ward.

Not Muslim majority but a mixed ward with substantial Muslim and Hindu populations. Worsening communal relations in that part of the city (which have reached the level of actual riots of course) means that the more radicalized sections of the Hindu community seem to have no interest in voting Labour now, which meant that the galaxy brained move of nominating someone from the more radical end of the community appealed to precisely no one and also alienated Muslims and presumably also Sikhs (who also have a presence there, though smaller). I don't know the precise details but it looks like a typical Keith Vaz style trick of the sort that might have worked once but does not any longer. Anyway, the result is about as meaningful for national political considerations as e.g. the Tories winning seats in and around the Manningham district of Bradford in the mid 1990s.