UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So, as some of the regulars here know I had a major operation at the beginning of August. All being well, I will come off the post-op steroids in a few weeks. Truss's Premiership occurred entirely within this period lmao.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Sam Allardyce in as caretaker to avoid relegation?

He's a Labour man which would make that problematic. Maybe Lampard could be persuaded to leave Everton?

This is the perfect opportunity to put a stop to any more Andrew Strauss High Performance Reviews.

An elegant solution for hitherto intractable leadership problems for both English Cricket and the Conservative Party.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There were a couple of PMs who spent less time in post due to failure to form a government.

Conventionally they aren't counted: it is said that they were appointed to form a ministry and failed to do so.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Chris Matheson, Labour MP for the City of Chester has resigned, following the ruling of an ethics committee, recommending he be suspended from the Commons for a month.

Not to overweight my instincts here, but there was always something... off there.

Cheshire, huh. Anyway. Those that know, know.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Any idea what this is about?

https://twitter.com/JuliaHB1/status/1580980400394207232?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctw...

It would have been a big gamble for Wallace, put it that way.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

hahahahaha there's SERIOUSLY a movement to just immediately go back to BoJo??? Incredible.

The most sophisticated electorate in the World!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Those that know, know.

Why are you always like this?

In this case a strong desire not to be sued for libel by a current or former (cannot say which) Honourable Member.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Those that know, know.

Why are you always like this?

In this case a strong desire not to be sued for libel by a current or former (cannot say which) Honourable Member.

Jaw-droppingly common British defamation law L. You should write a reworking of After the Banquet just to see what happens.

And unlike Mishima I already have a wound in my abdomen, so there's no need to go through with the whole Seppuku affair!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Bit of an outrage factory clickbait headline from The Grauniad there. Politicians in opposition will generally avoid making firm spending commitments unless they have a very good idea what the figures are likely to look like when/if they take power (which, right now, no one does) or they're doing the old trick of committing themselves to spending whatever the incumbents are. It's clear enough (including from that answer) that the health service would be a priority. My guess is that Labour in power would do what they usually do and increase social spending in phases over several years, or at least aim to. The actually interesting thing is the idea of putting more of an emphasis on preventative healthcare, because that would be a major policy shift.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The NHS does not focus on preventative care? Ouch.

The NHS is not a single organisation, but is better understood as a funding mechanism for a very large number of separate organisations. Every hospital is, in practice, its own bureaucratic kingdom with its own culture and ways of working, and GPs are actually independent contractors rather than directly employed by the NHS. The blood and transplant service (i.e. the provision of blood, plasma and donated organs, not what is then done with them) is its own organisation, the ambulance services are their own organisations and so on. One consequence of some rather incompetent reforms pursued during the Cameron government has been to overwhelm GP surgeries with bureaucratic work (they were, insanely, given certain commissioning responsibilities that used to be handled at a county level by bodies called Primary Care Trusts) which has cut the amount of time that GPs have for patients and has also made the profession less attractive for obvious reasons. This means that many people who used to report to their local GP surgery for minor injuries and so on now head straight for their nearest A&E. Austerity measures around about the same time has also meant that the various specialists essential for preventative strategies (dietitians and so on) are less available than they were previously.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Is she trying to court Heston Blumenthal with hopes of starting some absolutely deranged High Tory Bake-Off spinoff together? Weak effort if so.

Maybe she wishes to be a somewhat less right-wing replacement for Prue Leith.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

YouGov's structural difficulties with getting good samples from voters with lower educational attainment accidentally shows up there lol.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Curiously enough, Brian does have a deliberately non-posh nickname (used largely by his wife), though it isn't Brian, it's Fred. He, in turn, calls he Gladys. Meanwhile, his uncle the late and unlamented Edward VIII/Duke of Windsor was always known in his family as 'David', even though that was not his name. But this sort of thing is common enough with properly posh people even outside the Royal Family: Anthony Wedgwood Benn is best known to us as Tony, was usually known by colleagues as Wedgwood before the 1970s... but (and this is the relevant part) was called Jimmy by members of his family for his entire life. I have no idea why they do this either.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There will also, undoubtedly, be 'sectarian' voting in various directions in some measure even during a Tory defeat, if Sunak is still leader. Any model will need to drill down with specific polling.

The obvious parts will be further gains with Hindu voters and the likely loss of the ex-BNP vote. Both have distinctive geographical concentrations and so matter more with FPTP than, given the raw numbers involved, they would with a proportional system. Though what happens with other minorities is the unclear thing: quite a very plausible scenarios, all quite different.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Curiously enough, Brian does have a deliberately non-posh nickname (used largely by his wife), though it isn't Brian, it's Fred. He, in turn, calls he Gladys. Meanwhile, his uncle the late and unlamented Edward VIII/Duke of Windsor was always known in his family as 'David', even though that was not his name.

He was called Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, so it was actually one of his names.

Yes, but literally the last one and he was only given it for purely symbolic reasons (note that all of the last four - four! - names are of the Patron Saints of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Two Leaders of the Opposition have represented Yorkshire constituencies, though neither were Yorkshiremen: Hugh Gaitskell (Leeds South) and Ed Miliband (Doncaster North).

Sunak’s seat of Richmond (Yorks) has the odd distinction of being passed from Tory grandee to Tory grandee, almost by accident. It was represented by Leon Brittan (who was parachuted in from elsewhere), one of Thatcher’s Home Secretaries, who was replaced by William Hague (Foreign Secretary under Cameron, Leader of the Opposition to Blair), who was in turn replaced by Sunak.

As of this morning, it’s one of a handful of constituencies to have been represented by MPs holding each of the four Great Offices of State.

None of which were remotely local to it, even if Hague was a Yorkshireman. However, Lady Hale, the former President of the Supreme Court, is from the area and it is Richmond (Yorks) that her full title refers not Richmond upon Thames as often assumed. Anyway, if there's any geographic bounce for Sunak it is... unlikely to be felt in Yorkshire.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That's how you know it was a long time ago. Tory PM with a seat in Manchester...

The very working class and industrial Manchester East, no less.* He lost it at the 1906 General Election, though he wasn't the incumbent PM by that point (having resigned as his government could no longer function shortly before the election, allowing the Liberals to run a caretaker administration despite their being a Conservative-Liberal Unionist majority. Different times). He returned to the Commons after a hastily arranged by-election for the City of London constituency a few weeks later.

_{*Centred on the Ardwick district and also including Bradford and Beswick.}

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Look, the rather grim reality (and I hate saying this, I really do) is that she was only selected for S.W. Norfolk because she was [REDACTED] with Mark Field at the time and he was someone of influence back then and pulled strings for her.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I didn't know that Sunak and Brian are roughly the same height.

Most members of the Royal Family are small - up until the Spencer genes were added, of course. But note that Brian is seventy three so will have shrunk a little bit and has bad posture... and is still taller than Sunak (who wears lifts lol).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Buckland - who endorsed Sunak in the first leadership contest only to switch to Truss when it became clear that she was going to win - has, to the surprise of absolutely no one, also been sacked.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I love how calls for Party Unity are now always immediately followed by this, hahaha.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Buckland pays the price

Added indignity of being replaced by a certifiable moron.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

How many Ministers Without Portfolio is this?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Labour will be hoping that Williamson gets regularly wheeled out to the airwaves. Possibly the worst media performer to have ever held a cabinet position.

Keith Joseph erasure.