UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[Zinneke]

whats this tomato throwing about? context?

[Torrain]

whats this tomato throwing about? context?

Here’s the original story from the Metro: Dominic Raab ‘hurled three tomatoes across a room at staff in fit of rage’

[Torrain]

Reshuffle:

• Alex Chalk as Justice Secretary
• Oliver Dowden as Deputy PM
• Chloe Smith as interim Science and Technology Secretary (while Michelle Donelan is on maternity)

[CumbrianLefty]

There have been better timed insults than "Sir Softy", have there not.

[Conservatopia]

Reshuffle:

• Alex Chalk as Justice Secretary
• Oliver Dowden as Deputy PM
• Chloe Smith as interim Science and Technology Secretary (while Michelle Donelan is on maternity)

Overall it's +1 (Dowden) for the Johnson-Truss wing, though Donelan is also on the right and Smith on the left so it's evens really.
Besides it's meaningless as it feels like Braverman has been the de facto deputy all along.

Fwiw (nothing) I think Raab has a point about the bar for bullying being too low. All but two of the complaints against him were dismissed and the remaining two aren't horrifyingly bad.

[Chickpeas]

Interesting that Sunak has even named a new Deputy Prime Minister as he didn't have to. Even more surprising that it's Dowden. I wonder if Starmer will give the Deputy Prime Minister title to Angela Rayner if Labour win the next general election.

So yet another Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor, I believe that we're now on the tenth one since the Conservatives came to power in 2010. Some high turnover in that department. They have to go through all the faff of a formal swearing-in ceremony each time as well.   

[bore]

Reshuffle:

• Alex Chalk as Justice Secretary
• Oliver Dowden as Deputy PM
• Chloe Smith as interim Science and Technology Secretary (while Michelle Donelan is on maternity)

Overall it's +1 (Dowden) for the Johnson-Truss wing, though Donelan is also on the right and Smith on the left so it's evens really.
Besides it's meaningless as it feels like Braverman has been the de facto deputy all along.

Fwiw (nothing) I think Raab has a point about the bar for bullying being too low. All but two of the complaints against him were dismissed and the remaining two aren't horrifyingly bad.

Are tory factions as vibes based as Labour, because this seems an odd way to describe Truss's Work and Pensions secretary?

[Conservatopia]

Reshuffle:

• Alex Chalk as Justice Secretary
• Oliver Dowden as Deputy PM
• Chloe Smith as interim Science and Technology Secretary (while Michelle Donelan is on maternity)

Overall it's +1 (Dowden) for the Johnson-Truss wing, though Donelan is also on the right and Smith on the left so it's evens really.
Besides it's meaningless as it feels like Braverman has been the de facto deputy all along.

Fwiw (nothing) I think Raab has a point about the bar for bullying being too low. All but two of the complaints against him were dismissed and the remaining two aren't horrifyingly bad.

Are tory factions as vibes based as Labour, because this seems an odd way to describe Truss's Work and Pensions secretary?

British conservatism is entirely vibes based.

[TheTide]

Reshuffle:

• Alex Chalk as Justice Secretary
• Oliver Dowden as Deputy PM
• Chloe Smith as interim Science and Technology Secretary (while Michelle Donelan is on maternity)

Overall it's +1 (Dowden) for the Johnson-Truss wing, though Donelan is also on the right and Smith on the left so it's evens really.
Besides it's meaningless as it feels like Braverman has been the de facto deputy all along.

Fwiw (nothing) I think Raab has a point about the bar for bullying being too low. All but two of the complaints against him were dismissed and the remaining two aren't horrifyingly bad.

Are tory factions as vibes based as Labour, because this seems an odd way to describe Truss's Work and Pensions secretary?

British conservatism is entirely vibes based.

Cameron/Osborne were the ones who implemented a much more consistently 'Thatcherite' economic agenda and they were the 'moderates', yes.

[JimJamUK]

Cameron/Osborne were the ones who implemented a much more consistently 'Thatcherite' economic agenda and they were the 'moderates', yes.

A fact that virtually no one in politics seems willing to engage with these days, with the prevalent narrative being that they were a moderate party that has suddenly veered hard right post the EU referendum.

[CumbrianLefty]

Osborne in particular was the main reason why we voted for Brexit in the first place.

[Coldstream]

Dowden is far more associated with Cameron than Johnson/Truss. He was Cameron’s spad - and he backed May in 2016. He also resigned from Johnson’s government very pointedly after Wakefield/Tiverton and Truss didn’t reappoint him. I struggle to see even a vibes argument for him being seen aligned with Johnson/Truss.

Osborne in particular was the main reason why we voted for Brexit in the first place.

Osborne’s probably the worst chancellor we’ve had since the war, but I don’t think he can be blamed for Brexit. For one thing he and Cameron won an election the year before, austerity wasn’t discredited in the same way in 2016 that it is now.

[TheTide]

Dowden is far more associated with Cameron than Johnson/Truss. He was Cameron’s spad - and he backed May in 2016. He also resigned from Johnson’s government very pointedly after Wakefield/Tiverton and Truss didn’t reappoint him. I struggle to see even a vibes argument for him being seen aligned with Johnson/Truss.

Osborne in particular was the main reason why we voted for Brexit in the first place.

Osborne’s probably the worst chancellor we’ve had since the war, but I don’t think he can be blamed for Brexit. For one thing he and Cameron won an election the year before, austerity wasn’t discredited in the same way in 2016 that it is now.

Cameron and Osborne taking a high profile in the campaign (which Wilson didn't in 1975) arguably swung the result, given that it was a 4% majority. By the start of 2016, the ratings of the government and its leadership had declined significantly. If someone like Alan Johnson had been the most high profile person on the Remain side, then the Leave vote amongst Labour voters probably wouldn't have been as high as 30-40% and may have made the difference. Of course, Corbyn may be blamed here too.

[CumbrianLefty]

As mentioned before, Alan Johnson was p***poor as head of the Labour Remain campaign.

[Conservatopia]

I realise that this possibly isn't the point some of you are trying to make but I think this still needs to be said. The idea that Cameron/Osborne/austerity is the prime reason we got Brexit is as silly as the idea that it was all about racism. It's part of the dumb "actually it was a working class cry for help" narrative that assumes the people who voted Leave were too stupid to actually know what they were voting for and just decided to stick it to the elites/minorities (delete as appropriate).

Why is it so hard to accept that a majority of those who voted didn't like the European Union?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well, the issue is that most people don't have firm views on the EU either way and have never viewed it as a priority of priorities (except, briefly, in the sense that the endless debate post-2016 was distracting from everything else and needed to be finished with). So there was a theoretical majority for leaving the EEC (and then EU) from the very moment of accession, but equally there was always a theoretical majority for staying in. My argument has always been that the official Remain campaign (which, in practice, was run out of Downing Street) made the critical error of fighting on the wrong ground: they should have focused on the boring technicalities of trade policy while also putting the fear of God up the farmers, but instead fought the referendum as if it were a General Election.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Well, the issue is that most people don't have firm views on the EU either way and have never viewed it as a priority of priorities (except, briefly, in the sense that the endless debate post-2016 was distracting from everything else and needed to be finished with). So there was a theoretical majority for leaving the EEC (and then EU) from the very moment of accession, but equally there was always a theoretical majority for staying in. My argument has always been that the official Remain campaign (which, in practice, was run out of Downing Street) made the critical error of fighting on the wrong ground: they should have focused on the boring technicalities of trade policy while also putting the fear of God up the farmers, but instead fought the referendum as if it were a General Election.

Structuring it as a single referendum was incredibly dumb. Obviously there should have been a a notional referendum on starting negotiations and then a second on actually leavingunder the framework that was agreed to.

EDIT: Which was what I thought was going to happen when the first vote came down. That they took it as gospel ‘well we are going to drive over that cliff now’ based on a single very bare majority in a deeply unserious referendum is just mind boggling.

[Blair]

I think the problem many others have commented on is that Osborne and Cameron were use to relative easy mode in politics; the tactics that win you 37% in a general election against two weak leaders (Ed M and Clegg) don’t win you a huge turn out national referendum on the EU.

I don’t have the data behind it but I always remained relatively convinced it was won by people turning out who hadn’t cast a ballot for the major parties for a long time…

I take the view that broadly any vote on Europe would have always likely had this result; Major on Maastricht, Blair in 2000 on the Euro, Brown on Lisbon. Ironically this was actually the best chance to get a positive result as it was about the status quo.

[Coldstream]

Dowden is far more associated with Cameron than Johnson/Truss. He was Cameron’s spad - and he backed May in 2016. He also resigned from Johnson’s government very pointedly after Wakefield/Tiverton and Truss didn’t reappoint him. I struggle to see even a vibes argument for him being seen aligned with Johnson/Truss.

Osborne in particular was the main reason why we voted for Brexit in the first place.

Osborne’s probably the worst chancellor we’ve had since the war, but I don’t think he can be blamed for Brexit. For one thing he and Cameron won an election the year before, austerity wasn’t discredited in the same way in 2016 that it is now.

Cameron and Osborne taking a high profile in the campaign (which Wilson didn't in 1975) arguably swung the result, given that it was a 4% majority. By the start of 2016, the ratings of the government and its leadership had declined significantly. If someone like Alan Johnson had been the most high profile person on the Remain side, then the Leave vote amongst Labour voters probably wouldn't have been as high as 30-40% and may have made the difference. Of course, Corbyn may be blamed here too.

As someone who campaigned in that referendum I would strongly argue against that. Osborne’s punishment budget was bad, but the idea that normal people voted for Brexit because of it is political bubble idea imo - I doubt most people had any idea about it. I also don’t think there’s any evidence Cameron was any more toxic than Farage was, and I doubt he was much less popular than Johnson (if at all by the end of the campaign). I seriously doubt that antipathy to Cameron/Osborne moved more than a handful of votes.

Also I love Alan Johnson, but he was not the man to take the fight to Johnson/Gove/Farage on the leave side - a better/higher profile Labour campaign might have swung the result, but again I don’t see how Cameron can be blamed for that - he wanted to give Corbyn more prominence but Corbyn refused to work with him. (And I’m not even saying that was wrong after Better together in 2014 - just that its not fair to say Cameron deliberately dominated the remain side).

[TheTide]

Dowden is far more associated with Cameron than Johnson/Truss. He was Cameron’s spad - and he backed May in 2016. He also resigned from Johnson’s government very pointedly after Wakefield/Tiverton and Truss didn’t reappoint him. I struggle to see even a vibes argument for him being seen aligned with Johnson/Truss.

Osborne in particular was the main reason why we voted for Brexit in the first place.

Osborne’s probably the worst chancellor we’ve had since the war, but I don’t think he can be blamed for Brexit. For one thing he and Cameron won an election the year before, austerity wasn’t discredited in the same way in 2016 that it is now.

Cameron and Osborne taking a high profile in the campaign (which Wilson didn't in 1975) arguably swung the result, given that it was a 4% majority. By the start of 2016, the ratings of the government and its leadership had declined significantly. If someone like Alan Johnson had been the most high profile person on the Remain side, then the Leave vote amongst Labour voters probably wouldn't have been as high as 30-40% and may have made the difference. Of course, Corbyn may be blamed here too.

As someone who campaigned in that referendum I would strongly argue against that. Osborne’s punishment budget was bad, but the idea that normal people voted for Brexit because of it is political bubble idea imo - I doubt most people had any idea about it. I also don’t think there’s any evidence Cameron was any more toxic than Farage was, and I doubt he was much less popular than Johnson (if at all by the end of the campaign). I seriously doubt that antipathy to Cameron/Osborne moved more than a handful of votes.

Also I love Alan Johnson, but he was not the man to take the fight to Johnson/Gove/Farage on the leave side - a better/higher profile Labour campaign might have swung the result, but again I don’t see how Cameron can be blamed for that - he wanted to give Corbyn more prominence but Corbyn refused to work with him. (And I’m not even saying that was wrong after Better together in 2014 - just that its not fair to say Cameron deliberately dominated the remain side).

I wasn't even thinking of the punishment budget. I doubt specific events or policies swing many referendums or elections anyway. What it may have done is contributed to a certain narrative, and narratives usually decide referendums and general elections. Ed Miliband didn't lead Labour to defeat in 2015 because of the way he ate a bacon sandwich, but it contributed to a certain narrative (about him being a weirdo and not being up to the job of Prime Minister etc) that was probably a key factor in the defeat,

[CumbrianLefty]

I certainly believe Cameron/Osborne bear more responsibility for Brexit than Corbyn, put it that way.

Nobody is ever going to claim the latter had a triumph in 2016, but the fact remains that his "7 out of 10" assessment of the EU was one of the few comments from the remain side that actually chimed with the sort of people they needed to win over. The fact that #FBPE types continue to consider that an act of betrayal even today, just shows how away with the fairies their alt-centrism really is.

[Blair]

For what it’s worth the Labour Party was given a day during the campaign and both Tom Watson and Yvette Cooper used it to bang on about immigration and crime- the issue was that no-one in the party really knew how to talk about Europe in a way that wasn’t 1.) Dry 2.) Truthful.

Even Mr Tony’s usual judgment was skewered by it…

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The sad part being that 'dry and truthful' was actually always the way to win arguments over the EEC/EU, as Harold Wilson demonstrated...

[Torrain]

Quite a day in Scottish politics:

Former SNP Treasurer Colin Beattie returned to Holyrood, and did a press huddle, where he said he didn't know the party owned a campervan. Cue a media round about how he'd have seen the 2021 financial statements which should include the payment. Then, 5 hours later, he retracted, and said he did know about the campervan.

Sturgeon, who we'd been told was coming back to parliament "at some point soon", suddenly appeared at Holyrood, within a couple of hours of Beattie's interview, and did her own press huddle, where she denied her resignation was tied to the investigation (in language that wasn't exactly convincing) - and said the SNP crisis was "beyond her worst nightmares".

Yousaf, who's in London to meet Sunak and the Westminster Group of SNP MPs, then hopped onto LBC, and announced to Andrew Marr that the SNP would not refund anyone asking for their indyref2 donation back. Understandable, given it could lead to drain on funds and set a precedent - but not great optics given he admitted the £600,000 would be spent on other things and that "all payments to the SNP benefit independence". Not sure they can get away with the framing of "sure, we're under investigation, but we're keeping the cash, and we'll spend it how we please".

Meanwhile in Westminster, Stephen Flynn and Ian Blackford have both accused the other of misrepresenting them. Blackford claims he briefed Flynn on the auditing situation, and that he received an assurance that new auditors had been found on April 7th. Flynn says he wasn't told about the auditor situation until he'd been in the job for three months - and says the party is still looking for auditors.

[CumbrianLefty]

Tories did a transparent Commons stunt over sewage in rivers/beaches yesterday.

Despite rapturous approval from their most brain dead hired hacks, it seems to have rebounded.