UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[oldtimer]

I now know that Rishi Sunak reminds me of contestants on Alan Sugar's Apprentice:

[Blair]

Who was the last PM to have this many political problems left behind by his predecessor? Not as in a bad policy, or economic challenge but as in his Government having 6+ Blobby shaped bin fires to work out what to do with?

[Estrella]

Meanwhile in the editorial offices of the Morning Star circa 1975:

https://twitter.com/habibi_uk/status/1662504649813905409

Members of the University and Colleges Union (UCU), which has been holding its Congress at Glasgow's SEC, backed a motion accusing President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of wanting the country to become an “armed, illiberal outpost of US imperialism”. The motion, which also called on Russian troops to withdraw from Ukraine and noted Vladimir Putin’s troops had committed war crimes in the country, passed during the UCU congress on Saturday, May 27. An amendment to tone down the motion, including deleting the comment about Zelenskyy and including a section calling for a peaceful resolution to the conflict “based on freedom and independence for Ukraine” was defeated.

Of course it's UCU, but I wonder if back in the day you'd be more likely to hear a speech praising the Soviet invasion of [insert country] from a professor type or a Scargill type.

edit: and apparently all of this is happening in the middle of a major university strike hahahaha

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Interestingly for Labour, this shows that if they can get momentum into the campaign and overcome the 17/19 tactical calculus then a whole host more seats could be in play - East Renfrewshire, Edinburgh SW, Stirling, the Ayrshire seats.

On the one hand, Labour's 2019 result in East Ren was absolutely abysmal, but on the other, if there's any seat where Starmer will go down infinitely better than Corbyn, it's there. And Labour did improve slightly there in the local elections.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Of course it's UCU, but I wonder if back in the day you'd be more likely to hear a speech praising the Soviet invasion of [insert country] from a professor type or a Scargill type.

The former as a rule. The CPGB cadres that existed in some NUM regions and certain engineering unions developed very tight lips as regards embarrassing matters overseas after a certain point, whereas those in other areas were often less restrained.

edit: and apparently all of this is happening in the middle of a major university strike hahahaha

The UCU is a truly special organization.

[JimJamUK]

and apparently all of this is happening in the middle of a major university strike hahahaha

The UCU is a truly special organization.

Well what do you think they should be spending their time doing, letting their members vote on a pensions deal?!

[CumbrianLefty]

There has apparently been a partial backtrack on the offending (and offensive) motion.

[Torrain]

The Government is taking the COVID inquiry to court, to try and stall the release of government WhatsApp messages. Full statement below:

Has to be something shady in there to kick up a fuss like this, surely? Otherwise this seems like a needles self-inflicted injury.

And presumably Labour will smell blood, and try to either pressure the govenrment, or promise they’d release all Cabinet Office material desired by the inquiry when in office.

_{“integrity, professionalism, accountability”}

[Storr]

Why would you bother polling this? lol

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1663913743363760138?s=20

[Lord Halifax]

Why would you bother polling this? lol

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1663913743363760138?s=20

because the level of support is significantly higher than it has been historically

[CumbrianLefty]

Apart from that, all sorts of minority positions still get polled. And why not?

[Lord Halifax]

Apart from that, all sorts of minority positions still get polled. And why not?

it's interesting how things change over time e.g. we wouldn't have data for how many Americans oppose interracial marriages and when it became a fringe view if they'd just stopped polling it once it became a minority position.

given the state of the Welsh economy and how many English people live in Wales the level of support for Welsh independence is actually quite high, it's definitely above the threshold of when things start to get interesting. Just because something is unrealistic doesn't mean the level of support for it isn't interesting.

[afleitch]

Also 'Yes' was polling at this level in Scotland in late 2013/ early 2014, but with a large number of undecideds.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

because the level of support is significantly higher than it has been historically

It's hard to be sure of that as no one asked the question in a comparable manner before YouGov started doing it, or at least didn't do often: it only tended to be measured as part of a wider set of questions about options for (or against) devolution. What is true is that there's more fuss in elite cultural circles about the issue and that Plaid actually mention it in public now rather than weirdly obfuscating around the subject, but it's not clear if support for it is genuinely higher than anti-devolution sentiment, which still rattles around to an extent. The main political impact of this is that it has made Con-Plaid collaboration much trickier than was the case about fifteen years ago, especially as the Conservative group in the Assembly has radicalized as well (in the opposite direction), while also making formal coalitions between Labour and Plaid harder, even if they can still come to other arrangements (such as the present one).

given the state of the Welsh economy and how many English people live in Wales the level of support for Welsh independence is actually quite high, it's definitely above the threshold of when things start to get interesting. Just because something is unrealistic doesn't mean the level of support for it isn't interesting.

Sharp ethnic distinctions between 'English' and 'Welsh' don't really exist in Wales; it's more a matter of degree. A lot of people registered in the census as 'born in England' were so simply because the nearest/easiest to access maternity hospital happened to be in England (Chester, Shrewsbury and Hereford are the common ones), and a lot of people who move to Wales from England later in their lives have had Welsh parents or grandparents and so on. And you really can't extrapolate political sentiment from any of this: a remarkably high proportion of senior Plaid figures over the years were actually born in England, as was David Lloyd George. We do have the census question on national identity, of course, though that's a little problematic as people read it in different ways. But, basically, 'English' identity only registers above a quarter in a very narrow strip along the border (and the people ticking that box there is generally from families who have lived there a very long time... and who would probably feel 'Welsh' if they lived on the other side of the border) and in a handful of coastal towns with large retired populations.

[YL]

Caroline Lucas is standing down as MP for Brighton Pavilion at the next election.  This is an interesting one: the seat had become essentially safe for her, but how well a new Green candidate will be able to do at inheriting her vote must be a bit up in the air.  FWIW my assumption is that if the Greens make a reasonable choice they will probably hold it, but we will see.

Ian Blackford, the SNP's former Westminster leader, has also recently announced his retirement as an MP at the next election.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Caroline Lucas is standing down as MP for Brighton Pavilion at the next election.  This is an interesting one: the seat had become essentially safe for her, but how well a new Green candidate will be able to do at inheriting her vote must be a bit up in the air.  FWIW my assumption is that if the Greens make a reasonable choice they will probably hold it, but we will see.

Ian Blackford, the SNP's former Westminster leader, has also recently announced his retirement as an MP at the next election.

Is a Conservative victory out of the question here?

[YL]

Caroline Lucas is standing down as MP for Brighton Pavilion at the next election.  This is an interesting one: the seat had become essentially safe for her, but how well a new Green candidate will be able to do at inheriting her vote must be a bit up in the air.  FWIW my assumption is that if the Greens make a reasonable choice they will probably hold it, but we will see.

Ian Blackford, the SNP's former Westminster leader, has also recently announced his retirement as an MP at the next election.

Is a Conservative victory out of the question here?

Brighton Pavilion?  LOL.

Blackford's seat?  His retirement just makes the rearrangement of SNP seats following the boundary changes simpler; his seat is being split between Inverness-shire & Wester Ross and Caithness, Sutherland & Easter Ross so it leaves Drew Hendry with a clear run at the former.  The Tories have some support up there but I don't think it's enough to threaten to win.

[Blair]

She deserves a lot more credit than she gets politically; she is a very effective politician and I think the Greens would have done better if she had stayed leader in 2015 but then it would have been hard to do three jobs well.

The size of her majority, especially in 2017, is a sign of her own strong brand- you would imagine a strong Green candidate who runs with every leaflet having an endorsement from CL would do well and would carry a large part of that vote over; but equally it’s hard to tell especially with Labour having a relatively strong performance in Brighton lately.

[JimJamUK]

Caroline Lucas is standing down as MP for Brighton Pavilion at the next election.  This is an interesting one: the seat had become essentially safe for her, but how well a new Green candidate will be able to do at inheriting her vote must be a bit up in the air.  FWIW my assumption is that if the Greens make a reasonable choice they will probably hold it, but we will see.

Ian Blackford, the SNP's former Westminster leader, has also recently announced his retirement as an MP at the next election.

Is a Conservative victory out of the question here?

Blackford had a 30% lead over the Conservatives so no (the opposition vote is naturally very split there, only a big tactical vote for the Lib Dem’ could possibly challenge the SNP).

Brighton Pavilion is a lot more interesting. Lucas has essentially held on as a quasi-independent, with her vote share wildly out of line with how the Greens were doing in their other target seats. Brighton Pavilion is genuinely one of the naturally Greenest seats in Britain, but the party has been in the low single digits nationally for the past couple of elections so ‘shouldn’t’ having been winning it. I imagine the Greens will have a lot of applicants, and it’s unclear whether they’d want a competent outsider or a potentially tainted local (the Greens were just decimated after running the council, again). There might be Conservative history in the seat, but it’s clear that Labour should throw the kitchen sink at it in order to distract the Greens from elsewhere and ideally deprive them of elected Parliamentary representation once again.

[Coldstream]

I can’t imagine Carla Denyer is happy that rather than them throw everything at Bristol Central they are now being forced to defend Brighton Pavillion too.

Personally if I was the Greens I’d pick Alex Phillips, I met her when she was an MEP and she seemed pretty good - I thought after meeting her that she’d be Lucas’s successor - but I’m not sure if their massacres locally will have changed the dynamics.

[Property Representative of the Harold Holt Swimming Centre]

I'm sure many people who are only light followers of politics assume/assumed that Lucas is the leader of the Green Party. It is or was a similar case with Farage and UKIP (and its various other names).

[Chickpeas]

Any chance that Sian Berry could be the Green candidate in Brighton Pavilion? I know she's London based but is a former leader of the party and has name recognition.

Did Caroline Lucas have any particular connection to Brighton prior to standing? 

[JimJamUK]

I can’t imagine Carla Denyer is happy that rather than them throw everything at Bristol Central they are now being forced to defend Brighton Pavillion too.

They threw the kitchen sink at Bristol West the past 3 elections so I’m not sure how lacking the campaign will be (and if it would make much of a difference), and Brighton Pavilion is fairly distant from Bristol like their other targets (Sheffield Central, Waveney Valley etc) so it won’t pick off too many activists anyways.

[JimJamUK]

Did Caroline Lucas have any particular connection to Brighton prior to standing? 

No, she was MEP for the South East which includes Brighton but her connections were previously with places like Oxford, London and the West Midlands. She won a contested nomination over the popular and local previous candidate for the party, so it was very much the case of ‘party leader wants a seat’ and tbf she’s proved a very popular person with the electorate.

[Oryxslayer]

She deserves a lot more credit than she gets politically; she is a very effective politician and I think the Greens would have done better if she had stayed leader in 2015 but then it would have been hard to do three jobs well.

The size of her majority, especially in 2017, is a sign of her own strong brand- you would imagine a strong Green candidate who runs with every leaflet having an endorsement from CL would do well and would carry a large part of that vote over; but equally it’s hard to tell especially with Labour having a relatively strong performance in Brighton lately.

There is this interesting opportunity for the Greens to realign  now that their sole MP is retiring. As mentioned,  Brighton may not be so easy of a hold, between the personal vote vanishing, the Greens presently poor local reputation,  and Labour’s large national vote share. The local elections though suggest that the Greens have plenty more potential outside their traditional city center targets. Obviously there are all the caveats, but Nature NIMBYISM might give the Greens more targets in a Labour year - especially if they form another pact with the Lib-Dems - rather than running as a party to the left of Labour. And starting from a blank slate makes that change theoretically simpler.