UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[If my soul was made of stone]

You couldn’t make it up.
https://mobile.twitter.com/HarryYorke1/status/1578796938761076742

[brucejoel99]

The Times (Shipman) reporting that Graham Brady isn't inclined to allow a 1922 rule change permitting a VoNC in Truss' first 12 months unless the rebels number half of the parliamentary party, a figure currently equating to 178 MPs.

[Хahar 🤔]

The Times (Shipman) reporting that Graham Brady isn't inclined to allow a 1922 rule change permitting a VoNC in Truss' first 12 months unless the rebels number half of the parliamentary party, a figure currently equating to 178 MPs.

This is an incredible article. I was going to quote some of it but there are too many great bits. I'm looking forward to what happens when Labour picks up eight seats on the same day.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

The Times (Shipman) reporting that Graham Brady isn't inclined to allow a 1922 rule change permitting a VoNC in Truss' first 12 months unless the rebels number half of the parliamentary party, a figure currently equating to 178 MPs.

In an astonishing attack on Gove’s character, a friend of Truss added: “Michael is troubled and has never found his place in the sun. There is something deeply troubling about the darkness inside him. It grips him and it takes over.
“It corrupts his soul. The more he plots, the more baggage he collects and the more conflicted he then becomes about who and what he is. His answer to everything is more tax, more salami slicing, more failed economics. The Tory party has rejected him.”

actually cackled

[If my soul was made of stone]

The Times (Shipman) reporting that Graham Brady isn't inclined to allow a 1922 rule change permitting a VoNC in Truss' first 12 months unless the rebels number half of the parliamentary party, a figure currently equating to 178 MPs.

In an astonishing attack on Gove’s character, a friend of Truss added: “Michael is troubled and has never found his place in the sun. There is something deeply troubling about the darkness inside him. It grips him and it takes over.
“It corrupts his soul. The more he plots, the more baggage he collects and the more conflicted he then becomes about who and what he is. His answer to everything is more tax, more salami slicing, more failed economics. The Tory party has rejected him.”

actually cackled

the shadow over innsmouth aberdeenshire

[Conservatopia]

Why are the showrunners releasing a new crazy plot angle every week now?

This week we had "Spice Girl attends Tory confidence and gets harassed by gay minister". Next week will be something like, "Tory MP caught burgling Harry Kane, claimed he needed money to buy Snickers".

The showrunners are going to run out of storylines to throw at us.

[Torrain]

The Times (Shipman) reporting that Graham Brady isn't inclined to allow a 1922 rule change permitting a VoNC in Truss' first 12 months unless the rebels number half of the parliamentary party, a figure currently equating to 178 MPs.

Truly astonishing. Mordaunt on manoeuvres, Boris playing a poundshop Francis Urquhart, Shapps volunteering to be caretaker PM, Gove trying to get Johnson and Sunak to unite against Truss.

Even Kwasi’s lost the faith:

Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor, told a prominent Tory on Monday night, in the hearing of another Conservative, that Truss’s chances of survival are “only 40-60”. It is understood that he shared the same assessment with Shapps last week. The chancellor denies the remarks

And Parliament hasn’t even been reconvened yet - what the heck is it going to be like once Truss is trying to get her economic package  through the Commons, and burning through what remains of her political capital?

[WD]

The next PMQs will be quite interesting…

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

I saw another article about the Conor Burns situation and it seems a bit murky: he touched a man’s thigh and is “strongly of the impression” that it was consensual, but someone else told him to stop and that it was inappropriate. Do we have any knowledge of why or what the other man’s reaction is?

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

The Times (Shipman) reporting that Graham Brady isn't inclined to allow a 1922 rule change permitting a VoNC in Truss' first 12 months unless the rebels number half of the parliamentary party, a figure currently equating to 178 MPs.

Getting “We won’t allow it until we know it will succeed.” vibes here. Seems like bet hedging by Brady.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Why are the showrunners releasing a new crazy plot angle every week now?

This week we had "Spice Girl attends Tory confidence and gets harassed by gay minister". Next week will be something like, "Tory MP caught burgling Harry Kane, claimed he needed money to buy Snickers".

The showrunners are going to run out of storylines to throw at us.

The American showrunners got really lazy when they had "Reality Winner" get busted for leaking classified information.

[Torrain]

I saw another article about the Conor Burns situation and it seems a bit murky: he touched a man’s thigh and is “strongly of the impression” that it was consensual, but someone else told him to stop and that it was inappropriate. Do we have any knowledge of why or what the other man’s reaction is?

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. The PM learned about the incident on Tuesday, and we didn’t get a decision until a few days later, so they don’t appear to have acted overly rashly either.

There is a chance though, that Truss has jumped the gun. Firing Burns makes a nice contrast with Johnson’s inaction over Chris Pincher - and the optics may have won out over slim evidence. Burns also spent the conference endorsing Kemi Badenoch as “the future of the party”, and making veiled jabs at Truss’ self-promotion on social media, so he certainly didn’t have much goodwill left by the time the allegation was made.

[Torrain]

The Times reports that Ben Wallace is threatening to resign unless a pledge to increase defence spending to 3% of GDP is kept - requiring Truss to find another £20 billion in cuts elsewhere.

She’s also rowing back on plans to prevent benefits rise with inflation - so short of slashing foreign aid (which is infeasible, given that Tory MP Andrew Mitchell was able to force the far stronger Johnson government to increase aid via a backbench rebellion last year), I have no idea where the money for the cuts is going to come from.

Link: https://archive.ph/GyQ3j

[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.

[CumbrianLefty]

Braverman wants to make cannabis a Class A drug, apparently - apart from anything else I can't see our self declared "libertarian" PM running with this really.

And if Truss is the Tory Corbyn, what does that make Sue Ellen - their Chris Williamson?

[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...

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Braverman wants to make cannabis a Class A drug, apparently - apart from anything else I can't see our self declared "libertarian" PM running with this really.

And if Truss is the Tory Corbyn, what does that make Sue Ellen - their Chris Williamson?

A combination of the electability of Corbyn, the electoral skills of Michael Foot, and the level-headed, in step with the public political views of Zara Sultana.

[afleitch]

To be fair to Foot, in the short window between his election as leader and the foundation of the SDP, he opened up a sizable lead over the Tories.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Braverman wants to make cannabis a Class A drug, apparently - apart from anything else I can't see our self declared "libertarian" PM running with this really.

And if Truss is the Tory Corbyn, what does that make Sue Ellen - their Chris Williamson?

A combination of the electability of Corbyn, the electoral skills of Michael Foot, and the level-headed, in step with the public political views of Zara Sultana.

I mean Major lost worse than either Foot or Corbyn did and really no party in the post war period has been in worse shape than the Tories worse from like 97-05(if you want to include the years when Major was PM then 94-05)

[Blair]

I take the deeply revisionist view that Foot was the only person who could have held Labour together in those years, and allowed the 83-97 fight back to happen as it did.

[afleitch]

Sturgeon got some media flack (particularly in Scotland) for saying she 'detests Tories'... at least until Twitter backed her.

Again, good PR. She said she preferred a Labour government, but that it wouldn't go far enough.

[icc]

I take the deeply revisionist view that Foot was the only person who could have held Labour together in those years, and allowed the 83-97 fight back to happen as it did.

Certainly an interesting take to say that Foot held Labour together.

[Property Representative of the Harold Holt Swimming Centre]

I take the deeply revisionist view that Foot was the only person who could have held Labour together in those years, and allowed the 83-97 fight back to happen as it did.

Certainly an interesting take to say that Foot held Labour together.

FPTP held Labour together more than anything or anyone. But under a more combative figure than Foot things could have turned out differently, for better or worse.

[NewYorkExpress]

Nicola Sturgeon says there will be an Independence vote for Scotland in October 2023, even if the Supreme Court rules against it.

The leader of the Scottish government said Sunday that she will push on with her campaign to take Scotland out of the United Kingdom, even if she loses a Supreme Court case seeking authorization to call a new independence referendum.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon wants to hold a referendum in October 2023, but the Conservative U.K. government in London has said no. Britain’s top court is due to hear arguments starting Tuesday on whether Scotland’s semi-autonomous administration can organize an independence vote without the London government’s consent.

Sturgeon, who leads the Scottish National Party, said that if her Edinburgh-based government loses the court case, she will make the next U.K. national election a de facto plebiscite on ending Scotland’s three-century-old union with England.

She did not give details of how that would work. A vote held without the approval of the U.K. government would not be legally binding.

Sturgeon said that if the courts blocked a referendum, “we put our case to people in an election or we give up on Scottish democracy.”

It's starting to look like Scotland is going to become the new Catalonia.

[Torrain]

Kwarteng has announced that he's fast-tracking the medium-term fiscal statement, and accompanying OBR forecast:
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1579398018448510976

Positively received by Mel Stride (Conservative), Chair of the Treasury Select Committee, who's been highly critical of Kwarteng in recent weeks:
https://twitter.com/MelJStride/status/1579396328349585408