UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[Cassius]

Interested to see how she justifies attacking Jeremy Hunt, a chancellor she appointed to be cautious - for being too cautious.

Thinking is not a verb normally associated with Liz Truss no.

[Benjamin Frank]

I'm sure this has been answered before, but I was looking over the election results from 2010 to 2019 I had written down on a piece of paper, and it dawned on me that the Conservatives have been in government but will have had four different leaders in four consecutive elections:

2015: David Cameron
2017: Theresa May
2019: Boris Johnson
202?: Rishi Sunak (probably)

Has this ever happened anywhere in the world with a party in government before?

[Battista Minola 1616]

I'm sure this has been answered before, but I was looking over the election results from 2010 to 2019 I had written down on a piece of paper, and it dawned on me that the Conservatives have been in government but will have had four different leaders in four consecutive elections:

2015: David Cameron
2017: Theresa May
2019: Boris Johnson
202?: Rishi Sunak (probably)

Has this ever happened anywhere in the world with a party in government before?

The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan was led by Eisaku Satō in 1969, Kakuei Tanaka in 1972, Takeo Miki in 1976 and Masayoshi Ōhira in 1979 (Ōhira died a week before the following election in 1980 but I don't think his interim successor should count).

The Christian Democracy here easily produced an even longer streak, but being DC secretary and being President of the Council were only tangentially related jobs even though the DC was always by far the largest party in government because, you know, Italy.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

I'm sure this has been answered before, but I was looking over the election results from 2010 to 2019 I had written down on a piece of paper, and it dawned on me that the Conservatives have been in government but will have had four different leaders in four consecutive elections:

2015: David Cameron
2017: Theresa May
2019: Boris Johnson
202?: Rishi Sunak (probably)

Has this ever happened anywhere in the world with a party in government before?

New South Wales at current!

2011: Barry O’Farrell
2015: Mike Baird
2019: Gladys Berejiklian
2023: Dominic Perrottet

Edit: Nick Greiner in 1991 was the last time a NSW Liberal leader faced a second election btw.

[Zinneke]

Sunak has proved to be crapper than expected (didn't have high expectations to begin with) but surely he's still the best candidate they have? I'm sure he'll get plenty of grief after the local elections but I think the lack of any alternative will keep him in place until the next election.

And the fact Truss is already attempting a comeback is beyond any description, just absurd.

Boris is a better candidate because he's still a good salesman unlike Sunak. He can sell the turds he's produced better than any Tory candidate.

[Pericles]

Sunak has proved to be crapper than expected (didn't have high expectations to begin with) but surely he's still the best candidate they have? I'm sure he'll get plenty of grief after the local elections but I think the lack of any alternative will keep him in place until the next election.

And the fact Truss is already attempting a comeback is beyond any description, just absurd.

Boris is a better candidate because he's still a good salesman unlike Sunak. He can sell the turds he's produced better than any Tory candidate.

It doesn't work when the public loathe the salesman rather than seeing him as an irresponsible rogue. Partygate especially made him toxic, for being an elitst scumbag not respecting the huge sacrifices he imposed on people.

[Torrain]

Some absolute gems in the Truss article - truly willing to blame anyone and everyone else for her premiership sinking. It’s clear that, as she writes in the article - “soul-searching has not been easy for me”.

Spoiler alert: Truss ramblings, for the curious

Show

• The collapse of her government was due to a “left-wing economic establishment”, an unironic echo of this Private Eye piece from last year.
• She says her “mandate wasn’t respected”, but never makes a case for how the votes of 80,000 Tory members allowed her to bin the 2019 manifesto.
• She rails against raising corporation tax from 19-25%, attacking Sunak for the change. Even though, of course, she’s the one who had to put that policy in place, after she appointed Hunt to disassemble Trussonomics.
• She accuses Johnson, May, and Cameron (Mr Austerity himself), of having a Labour-adjacent economic policy, and demanding the party swing hard to the economic right.
• She all but suggests the IMF, OBR and Joe Biden are part of some high-tax establishment, using their public statements to bring her plans down.
• And amazingly, she admits she was given “the starkest of warnings” by government economists that if she continued, we might not be able to fund our debt commitments. And yet, she immediately pivots to say that she was right, and her policy was the correct one!
• She says that the media and public had shifted too far to the left on economic issues, and just didn’t understand her tax plans: “Large parts of the media and the wider public sphere had become unfamiliar with key arguments about tax and economic policy and over time sentiment had shifted leftward”

Wild as the article is, it all boils down to this, from last year:

[MABA 2020]

Sunak has proved to be crapper than expected (didn't have high expectations to begin with) but surely he's still the best candidate they have? I'm sure he'll get plenty of grief after the local elections but I think the lack of any alternative will keep him in place until the next election.

And the fact Truss is already attempting a comeback is beyond any description, just absurd.

Boris is a better candidate because he's still a good salesman unlike Sunak. He can sell the turds he's produced better than any Tory candidate.

Boris would turn off as many people as he would bring back. But sure switch back to Boris, it's probably better for the country if he's the one to get crushed in the next election.

[Blair]

The irony ofc is that there's very little discussion either from her or her allies, or even some of her critics that she was the reason it went so awfully- she was a terrible public speaker, someone with absolutely no public presence & absolutely no political judgement beyond an ability to win over Conservative Members.*

It's forgotten that the reason she had so many issues was because she refused to try and build any sort of unity with Sunak or his supporters; I would note Sunak has appointed some of her allies to posts and it has broadly been a happier ship!

I can guarantee that any other post war PM would have handled the Queens Death in a way that would have gotten some mention; she just came across as deeply strange and out of her depth. It was telling that in the Commons not only did Keir & Boris deliver much better speeches but so did many backbenchers including Theresa May.

She was the product of Conservative MPs & Conservative members talking among themselves; much more so than Labour members ever do! For all the criticisms of Corbyn we did not try and replace him with Richard Burgon while insisting Jeremy was too right wing.

While the mini-budget did a lot of damage people forget it was the farcical fracking vote that actually ended things; for a Government with a majority of 70 to march itself over a mine-field & then change its mind half way while the officers fight each other was really a fitting end for her regime.

I have spent a lot of time trying to work out why Truss is even getting discussed; everyone knows it was a disaster and its telling there isn't even the usual post prime ministerial debate you see with others where soft partisans try and balance out varying factors (Thatcher on the unions, Blair on Iraq, Cameron on the economy)

Truss is a prime ministerial leper to quote Wilson, yet she seems completely unaware of it.

*Even the canary in the coal mine looking back was the challenge Truss faced in getting to the final round; she only beat Penny to the final round after a very vicious briefing war against her & there are ofc still a lot of people who believe votes were lend to get Truss in the final round.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The biggest reveal is the quote "I thought my mandate would be respected". Truss did all the right things in greasing the levers of various subfactions and affiliates to get the top job, but this is not fundamentally a mandate. It isn't an uncommon problem for politicians to get mixed up between their domination of a council or convention for real, tangible power: but Truss really seems to be uniquely unaware of the fact that just getting an arbitrary, self-selected clique of weirdos to anoint you as leader is not in anyway equivalent to broad consent or a real power base. You see this most clearly in her insane behaviour during the fracking vote: why whip a vote that would have passed anyway and went against the "mandate" of the 2019 manifesto? Because she had the just as important, mandate, of um, a clown show contest.

[Silent Hunter]

No, I do not wish to hear the opinions of Jeremy Corbyn on the war in Ukraine, no I do not wish to hear the opinions of Liz Truss on the economy, and, frankly, I'm not sure what the justification is for any sort of media attention on either.

They are former leaders of their respective parties.

[CumbrianLefty]

Yes, and.....?

Of course some of us think a certain Labour ex-PM has been a bit over-fond of sounding off as well.

[TheTide]

Truss won 50 votes in the first round of the first leadership election of 2022. I wonder if she might not have won if she had won one less vote (there is quite a psychological difference between 49 and 50) then she would have been written off and Mourdaunt (who came behind Truss by a few votes in the last MPs' round as it was) would have become Prime Minister. There wouldn't have been the KamaKwasi budget and the Tories would be in a better position. As it is, we are here, and the Tories look doomed.

[MABA 2020]

Can't bring myself to read the Truss article, I can't stand that much delusional blame shifting.

[Frodo]

If you're a unionist, now would be a good time for a second (and final) Scottish independence referendum:

Poll shows slump in support for SNP and Scottish independence

Support for the SNP at Holyrood and Westminster has dropped, a new poll suggests.

The YouGov survey for the Sunday Times of 1,088 Scottish voters shows support for the party dropped from 50% to 44% in the Holyrood constituency vote and from 40% to 36% in the regional list, when compared to the results of the same poll in December.

Support for independence also dropped substantially, from 53% to 47% among decided voters.

SNP support at Westminster dropped marginally from 43% to 42%.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said she plans to run the next UK election as a “de-facto referendum” in the hopes of achieving a majority of votes north of the border and securing negotiations on independence.

But the First Minister’s approval rating has also suffered in recent months, dropping from a net of 7% in October to -4%.

[Torrain]

If you're a unionist, now would be a good time for a second (and final) Scottish independence referendum

Not entirely convinced, speaking as someone who gives this rather too much thought in the wee hours. Don't think any UK PM wants to do what Cameron did and gamble with the constitution or Union in a referendum, giving the outcome of the last few...

Indeed, independence polling is highly volatile (we had polling with Yes leading by a couple of points in the past month along), and as a general rule, holding a referendum under a deeply unpopular Conservative Government gives nationalists a clear, motivating opponent to run against.

Also, the past decade has shown that, as with late 20th century Quebec, there is no final referendum, until it loses political urgency (i.e. the SNP recedes), or the consensus becomes so pro-Yes (not going to speculate on that...) that Westminster is forced to respond.

[JimJamUK]

Also, the past decade has shown that, as with late 20th century Quebec, there is no final referendum, until it loses political urgency (i.e. the SNP recedes), or the consensus becomes so pro-Yes (not going to speculate on that...) that Westminster is forced to respond.

Yeah, the 2014 referendum was “once in a generation” yet within a few years it became the defining issue of Scottish politics. And I would quibble with the bolded part, there is a final referendum, the one where Scotland votes Yes. You can guarantee there won’t be a confirmatory vote or a post-independence referendum on rejoining the Union after that.

[oldtimer]

Graham Brady has found out that he is on course to lose his own seat.
https://twitter.com/TelePolitics/status/1622086582466498561

When you consider changing the rules to force the leader out you know it's bad, he did the same with May and Boris just before they were ousted.

So lets make a new UK Conservative Leadership Election 2023 thread, just in case.

[oldtimer]

To many that would say "oh no not another leadership election" the answer is simple.

You need leadership elections to find out which candidate is in practice the better campaigner to lead your party in an election.

May and Sunak were appointed and turned out crap in record time, despite being good on paper.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

To many that would say "oh no not another leadership election" the answer is simple.

You need leadership elections to find out which candidate is in practice the better campaigner to lead your party in an election.

May and Sunak were appointed and turned out crap in record time, despite being good on paper.

Truss was elected in a leadership contest and was worse than both.

[CumbrianLefty]

The point is, Tories doing yet another leadership this change this year would - absolutely rightly - be seen as a blatant p*** take by the vast majority of voters.

And if they are still deluding themselves that there is someone out there who could miraculously and magically restore their fortunes, then if anything that makes it worse.

THEY are the problem.

[oldtimer]

The point is, Tories doing yet another leadership this change this year would - absolutely rightly - be seen as a blatant p*** take by the vast majority of voters.

And if they are still deluding themselves that there is someone out there who could miraculously and magically restore their fortunes, then if anything that makes it worse.

THEY are the problem.

Their economic policies are the problem.

The economy is like a steam train:

It needs plenty of cheap energy to function, cheap technically educated labour to operate, cheap raw materials to manufacture it, and a good cheap transport network to run on.

Government policies in the UK have lead to the reverse of the above, so the economic steam train is stuck.

[Torrain]

https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1622641270572154880

[ingemann]

https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1622641270572154880

So the Tories will replace Sunak soon?

[afleitch]

Unlikely.

There isn't anything left in the tank. Rishi is getting close to having to watch the outcome of each critical vote less there be an organised rebellion; there's likely to be a degree of internal pushback on his threats to leave the ECHR for example.

The polling situation is remarkably stable and being a direct switch of Tory voters; both loyal and transient to Labour, hasn't really unwound back to the Tories favour. The economy won't recover in time; the fundamentals might be better for the Tories than predicted but the net effect on inflation etc isn't going to come through for them. The recent shift in the swings of voting behaviour from class to age is likely to exacerbate any defeat rather than soften it and bake in a much more difficult climate for the Tories in future elections.