UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[CumbrianLefty]

One of the Britannia Unchained authors, though he does seem to have moderated a bit since then.

[Torrain]

Another Tory retirement announcement: former minister and relatively green Kingswood MP Chris Skidmore won't be not standing again.  He's something of a victim of the boundary changes, as his seat is proposed to be split between Bristol North East and Hanham & North East Somerset; the former isn't likely to vote Tory and going for the latter might have put him in a head to head with Jacob Rees-Mogg.

"Net Zero architect steps down to avoid losing selection battle to pro-fracking Victorian cosplayer" feels like a bad look for the party.

Understandable decision on Skidmore's part, but man...

[Blair]

I keep forgetting about the changes; Kingswood was also one of the Blair era Labour seats that would be expected to come back into play on the current polling.

The reason we’re seeing retirements is because Tories have to announce by 4th December if they’re restanding but ofc some will retire anyway after saying they won’t.

[Blair]

The Mail are running a second day of front pages attack on Labour over its policy to tax private schools  - for non U.K. posters the schools are exempt from VAT and also get charitable status. Labour policy is to tax them and use this funding for state schools.

It’s a bit strange as the policy is popular and Labour have been vocal about supporting it; Jeremy Hunt threw some dubious figures out about it during the budget so suggests it’s planned by the Tories will is actually more hilarious.

Maybe I’m just in a bubble (no-one I knew when I was young could afford it- even people like me who had one parent on an above average professional income) but private schools really aren’t as accessible as they were in the 90s and the state sector broadly isn’t bad enough to force people to send their kids private.

The only people who seem to care are those parents with kids in private schools or those working in the sector.

[Blair]

On an aside as awful as Eton, Dulwich, Winchester are, the really corrosive issue is how poor a lot of the private schools are and how they charge £13,000 for a pretty average education with cello lessons added on.

 

[Cassius]

I think the real, mounting problem for private schools is the way that Oxford and Cambridge are recalibrating their selection procedures to reduce their intake of private school pupils (anecdotally, I remember chatting to a post doc at Cambridge earlier this year who told me that he was instructed to hold private school interviewees for undergraduate places to a considerably higher standard than those from state schools in order to reduce the number given offers). Given that, I assume, most parents of bright pupils will have at least a vague interest in their progeny attending Oxbridge, the fact that having a private school education will now potentially disadvantage you in the race for places (and these are competitive to get into unlike the rest of the university system) raises a big question mark over the point of shelling out £10k plus a year for a private school education.

[CumbrianLefty]

Its just another example of how out of touch the Mail has become - even with most of its own readers - since an increasingly brain poisoned Dacre fully took control again.

[Conservatopia]

It doesn't really need to ve said but the private schools are a very nuanced issue. There's all sorts of different kinds and people attend for all sorts of different reasons.

My job means I see behind the curtain on a lot of these institutions and frankly without their charitable status many of them will close down. This is particularly the case for the schools in older, larger buildings. Suddenly having to pay rates would destroy their already tight budgets. Private school budgets were hammered by the pandemic as many parents stopped paying fees whilst the expense of keeping the building maintenained and teachers paid remained.

Private schools closing would not be a positive development for anybody.
It would increase pressure on the public system and restrict choice for parents (eg Muslims) with legitimate concerns about the curriculum.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

https://twitter.com/lara_spirit/status/1595833918523056128

Wait... BoJo and Truss are trying to outflank Rishi on environmentalism? After the thing that finally brought down Truss was forcing her MPs to vote in favor of fracking???

Just. Wild. You can't make this sh*t up.

TIL Britain has a ban on on-shore wind.

[Torrain]

PMQs focusing on private schools this week.

Starmer listed off the facilities at Winchester (Sunak's alma mater), which includes extensive sporting pitches, shooting ranges etc. He also referred to private schooling as "trickle-down education" - which I assume is a line the party is focus-group testing as we speak.

Rather than making the more nuanced arguments Conservatopia has in this thread, Sunak tried to frame private schooling as aspirational and a route to success. Which fits his own biography (his parents worked multiple jobs to send him to private school), but has very little pull over the electorate at large - and will probably be spun as an lack of faith in state schooling.
 
Blackford seems to be spending most of his speaking time attacking Starmer over his positions on Brexit - before pivoting awkwardly back to a softball "Brexit is bad, isn't it Mr Speaker?"

Munira Wilson (Lib Dem) is the first to make a slightly-awkward World Cup joke - about Marcus Rashford running circles around both the Welsh defence, and the Conservative government.

[Conservatopia]

https://twitter.com/lara_spirit/status/1595833918523056128

Wait... BoJo and Truss are trying to outflank Rishi on environmentalism? After the thing that finally brought down Truss was forcing her MPs to vote in favor of fracking???

Just. Wild. You can't make this sh*t up.

TIL Britain has a ban on on-shore wind.

Foreign tourists unaware of our laws should avoid eating baked beans and other flatulence-inducing foods.

[CumbrianLefty]

Sunak's main attack line today can not at all unfairly be summarised as "vote Labour and you will get pretty much what is happening right now". Maybe not the best election winning pitch, all told.

[JimJamUK]

Sunak's main attack line today can not at all unfairly be summarised as "vote Labour and you will get pretty much what is happening right now". Maybe not the best election winning pitch, all told.

Posties on strike, rail workers on strike, nurses going on strike, ambulance workers going on strike, don’t risk chaos by voting Labour!

[afleitch]

Sunak's main attack line today can not at all unfairly be summarised as "vote Labour and you will get pretty much what is happening right now". Maybe not the best election winning pitch, all told.

Posties on strike, rail workers on strike, nurses going on strike, ambulance workers going on strike, don’t risk chaos by voting Labour!

The problem for Labour is when strikes abate, inflation drops but the country is still wanting to give the Tories a kicking, that might throw a few of the blows if Labour have nothing to offer that isn't something new and beyond what we've seen over the past decade. Which in recent weeks isn't an unfair criticism.

[Silent Hunter]

And Labour's Brexit stance might hurt them among pro-EU voters.

[Torrain]

Bone-headed & senseless decision. Govt says #SizewellC is vital to meet 2035 electricity decarbonisation target, but *its own impact statement* found we won't get supply for at least another 13-17 years - do the maths! Nuclear is hugely costly & simply can't help meet 2035 target

Gordon Brown is guilty of the most staggering failure of political vision... It simply isn't true that nuclear power is the answer to rising fuel prices, since the earliest that a new nuclear power station could come on stream is around 2017.

Some days, I'm still not convinced the Green Party isn't an elaborate piece of anti-environmentalist performance art.

[JimJamUK]

Bone-headed & senseless decision. Govt says #SizewellC is vital to meet 2035 electricity decarbonisation target, but *its own impact statement* found we won't get supply for at least another 13-17 years - do the maths! Nuclear is hugely costly & simply can't help meet 2035 target

Gordon Brown is guilty of the most staggering failure of political vision... It simply isn't true that nuclear power is the answer to rising fuel prices, since the earliest that a new nuclear power station could come on stream is around 2017.

Some days, I'm sttill not convinced the Green Party isn't an elaborate piece of anti-environmentalist performance art.

Can’t wait until 2035 when we’ve missed our climate targets and Caroline Lucas is attacking proposals to build more nuclear power plants as too little too late.

[NewYorkExpress]

Prince William's Godmother is in trouble after making a racist comment to a charity executive.

The late Queen's lady-in-waiting Lady Susan Hussey has apologised and resigned after she repeatedly asked a black British charity boss where she was "really" from.

Ngozi Fulani, a charity founder, was questioned about her background at the charity event at the palace on Tuesday.

Ms Fulani, said she was "totally stunned" by Prince William's godmother's comments.

The palace described the remarks as "unacceptable and deeply regrettable".



A spokesperson for Prince William said "racism has no place in our society".

"The comments were unacceptable, and it is right that the individual has stepped aside with immediate effect," they said.

Lady Hussey, 83, was a close confidante of the late Queen and accompanied her at the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh last year.

She was a key and trusted figure in the Royal Household for decades, and part of her latest role had involved helping to host occasions at Buckingham Palace.

[Property Representative of the Harold Holt Swimming Centre]

https://twitter.com/electpoliticsuk/status/1598254552322408453?s=20&t=bKctOE...
Reform now getting near UKIP 2015 levels. Boris will be hoping that this continues and that it also shows up in by-elections and local elections. That was how (or the main reason anyway) he got the premiership in 2019.

[Torrain]

Ian Blackford standing down as SNP Westminster Party Leader.

There was a Times story about a leadership challenge a few weeks back, that both Blackford, and the alleged challenger (Stephen Flynn) both denied - but looks like they must have been into something.

[Continential]

Ian Blackford standing down as SNP Westminster Party Leader.

There was a Times story about a leadership challenge a few weeks back, that both Blackford, and the alleged challenger (Stephen Flynn) both denied - but looks like they must have been into something.

Good riddence.

[CumbrianLefty]

Tbh that YouGov looks a fairly obvious outlier, but who knows.

[Torrain]

Johnson has informed his constituency party in Uxbridge that he intends to stand again.

Feels notable. Any plan to switch seats to run somewhere safer in the Home Counties (floated repeatedly over the past year) is now essentially over. Either he bails last minute, or runs in a seat that’s going to be a tad marginal.

The Telegraph (who broke the story) are wish-casting that this indicates a leadership challenge against Sunak is on the cards after the local elections next May.

[NewYorkExpress]

Johnson has informed his constituency party in Uxbridge that he intends to stand again.

Feels notable. Any plan to switch seats to run somewhere safer in the Home Counties (floated repeatedly over the past year) is now essentially over. Either he bails last minute, or runs in a seat that’s going to be a tad marginal.

The Telegraph (who broke the story) are wish-casting that this indicates a leadership challenge against Sunak is on the cards after the local elections next May.

I would think the local Conservative Party, and maybe national Conservatives, have to hope Johnson loses next election.

He's more of a liability for the party than Truss is.

[Torrain]

Johnson has informed his constituency party in Uxbridge that he intends to stand again.

Feels notable. Any plan to switch seats to run somewhere safer in the Home Counties (floated repeatedly over the past year) is now essentially over. Either he bails last minute, or runs in a seat that’s going to be a tad marginal.

The Telegraph (who broke the story) are wish-casting that this indicates a leadership challenge against Sunak is on the cards after the local elections next May.

I would think the local Conservative Party, and maybe national Conservatives, have to hope Johnson loses next election.

He's more of a liability for the party than Truss is.

A number in the party still think of him as this Arthurian figure, who alone can slay the red dragon and will awaken from his slumber/return from banishment at their hour of greatest need.

It would almost be healthier for him to lose at the ballot box, and burst that bubble, than let a Thatcher-esqe sheen of electoral invulnerability attach to him permanently (It’s likely Thatcher would have lost *badly* in 1992, given the polling in her final year - following the poll tax, but corners of the party faithful have tended to ignore that).