UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[afleitch]

A very beep boop, twirling towards freedom opening pitch from Truss.

[afleitch]

Lady Penelope dot gif.

[afleitch]

What's interesting is that if she wasn't a Tory, replaying the old conference 'abolish the monarchy' clips etc would have been news for weeks. The right wing press are happy to protect her.

I'm interested if she ever attended a CND demo at the same time as Sturgeon.

[afleitch]

Yes.

It does sound serious. Gauging by the reactions in the Commons and the family heading north.

[afleitch]

If she does pass away at Balmoral, it does complicate the days after. The understanding is she is taken to Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh to lie in state. Then the body is taken to the Castle with a small service at St Giles' before the body is returned to London. Preferably by train (which is risky) but most likely plane to be received.

Edinburgh is a much... harder city to 'rush' to and perhaps easier to control crowds than in London.

[afleitch]

The BBC will know what it needs to know. The Commons will have been told what it needs to have been told.

[afleitch]

If she does pass away, I will create a separate pinned thread.

While I wouldn't expect so much..'strength of feeling' on a US forum, I will be quite tight with moderation. And I say that as someone who is in no way a royalist.

[afleitch]

A new thread has been set up for discussion.

[afleitch]

It feels like the Tony Blair Power Hour on the BBC right now.

[afleitch]

I’ve not tended to find Charles much of an impressive figure in the past, but I thought he (and the Palace team) did an admirable job, broadly hitting the right notes in his speech. It was certainly more emotional than the speeches QE2 gave, but it fit the mood.

I mean, he led off with a tribute to QE2, reiterated the importance of service and the Commonwealth, and then implied he’d do his best to step back from political advocacy (which will assuage some concerns).

Refusing to wait the traditional period, and just naming William as Prince of Wales now gets rid of a lot of pointless media speculation, and helps reinforce the transition (it certainly gave me slight vertigo for a moment). Seems like a good call.

Explicitly celebrating Harry and Meghan feels like the best way to avoid those circumstances getting another round of speculation (“King snubs Harry by leaving him out of first speech!” is a headline they did well to avoid).

He does kinda talk about Camilla like she’s going to be our fun new stepmother, but that’s just a longstanding Charles thing.

I think the acknowledgement of Harry and Meghan is a 'shut up now' to the press. Even though there is allegedly genuine strain between him and the King, I don't think he's one for the constant right wing gossip around them.

[afleitch]

Historic stuff with the Privy Council. Interesting to watch.

[afleitch]

The Privy Council has been an interesting assembly so far - fascinating to see Starmer, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May and Johnson standing at the head of a crowd of politicians, with a sea of familiar Cabinet faces hovering in the background, in addition to Lib Dem and SNP grandees.

Penny Mordaunt is chairing events. Truss made her Leader of the Commons and Lord President of the (Privy) Council on Tuesday, which are pretty low-key jobs in normal times (the kind of thing you give to Andrea Leadsom or Rees-Mogg). And yet by Saturday, she’s MC for a number of constitutional ceremonies, as part of the succession, and by dint of being appointed Lord President (which is normally just a sinecure given to an MP so they have the right to attend Cabinet).

Deep down, Rees-Mogg is kicking himself.

[afleitch]

Some concerning events in Leicester recently which aren't being 'elaborated' on by the press. Which is probably write damaging in the short term.

[afleitch]

Meanwhile there are scores of Conservative MPs who are about as religious as Lenin's corpse who nevertheless always chose to be sworn in (and usually on the KJV) because it's what's done, old chap. Which is related to the main reason why Truss's Reading at the Queen's funeral was as amusingly poor as it was: she's not religious (even if she now, frankly pointlessly, claims to be vaguely Anglican. Who buys this? And why even bother?), did not have a religious background growing up and was not exposed to religion much at school and so, unsurprisingly, was entirely and obviously unfamiliar with both the verse she had to read and how you're supposed to read from the Bible. Mind you, most people in that position would have rehearsed like mad and made sure to check how you're supposed to do it, but she's arrogant even for a politician.

She's really terrible isn't she. I love it.

[afleitch]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-62980394

'The latest census figures show that for the first time there are more people from a Catholic background in Northern Ireland than Protestant.

The proportion of the resident population which is either Catholic or brought up Catholic is 45.7% compared to 43.48% Protestant.'

itshappening.gif

[afleitch]

https://mobile.twitter.com/RobinFlavell/status/1568321608300855297

It's this. This floored me. And it works.

(Though you need to know the reference of course)

[afleitch]

Also, no Truss 'bounce' in the polls, or nothing outside MoE. It could be argued 'events' still linger in the public consciousness but still.

Large Labour poll leads going into the winter have the potential to become something more permanent. The possibility of a Labour government becoming 'inevitable' because the current government is simply done isn't something anyone wants to commit to just yet. The idea that they could even win 'big' because of the 2019 switchers weak attachment to the Tories and an elastic electorate, is less entertained.

[afleitch]

JRM suggesting in the Commons that opponents of fracking (who included, just in this session, quite a few backbenchers in his own party) are in the pay of the Kremlin.

Yes, this is going superbly.

I still can't quite believe that a) he was given a proper Cabinet post again and b) it happens to be one that is going to be rather high profile and important given the present situation.

And his seat isn't exactly safe either, especially if this is THE ISSUE that resonates with voters. Especially with the proposed boundaries.

And he's not really 'parachute' material.

[afleitch]

The 'leaked report' it's effectively what Brown has been wheeled out to propose in the Scottish press like a reanimated corpse for the past ten years.

'Reforming the House of Lords' is a hundred year old unfulfilled promise.

[afleitch]

I'm increasingly missing Boris Johnson, this mini-budget just shows how much worse Truss' policies are. We're counting on Labour to put this government out of its misery in 2024.

As I said on another forum, it's bizarro-socialism that cares not a jot about inflation or borrowing or the defecit but shovels free money into the pockets of it's wealthy client base.

Labour will have to cut spending and raise taxes or start seizing wealth. Which frankly it's long overdue.

[afleitch]

My expectation is that this won't work.

And that the public understanding that it doesn't work will facilitate a new understanding that the only way to obtain wealth and encourage growth is to redistribute it. But people have to want it.

I'm increasingly missing Boris Johnson, this mini-budget just shows how much worse Truss' policies are. We're counting on Labour to put this government out of its misery in 2024.

As I said on another forum, it's bizarro-socialism that cares not a jot about inflation or borrowing or the defecit but shovels free money into the pockets of it's wealthy client base.

Labour will have to cut spending and raise taxes or start seizing wealth. Which frankly it's long overdue.

The Tory march into the sea of "single-issue pensioners' FYIGM party" continues unabated!

The ONS shows that those aged 60 to 64 have nine times as much wealth as those age 30-34 and while wealth decreases above that, as social care costs rise, the median wealth of someone over 90, is higher than every cohort under the age of 54.

It's a demographic trap we're in. There's nothing left to squeeze out of the working age population.

[afleitch]

Also, Truss is a disaster. Truly terrible.

I wonder if Non-right wing Scotland voters will get the message they need to vote Labour to end the Truss led Tories. Otherwise it would take a massive popular vote number to get any sort of decent majority.

Why would they?

[afleitch]

Also, Truss is a disaster. Truly terrible.

I wonder if Non-right wing Scotland voters will get the message they need to vote Labour to end the Truss led Tories. Otherwise it would take a massive popular vote number to get any sort of decent majority.

Why would they?

Why would they vote Labour? Because they want to get rid of the Tories?

Which we've been doing in every general election for nearly 60 years.

Why would SNP voters vote Labour? Why would they prefer a Labour majority over a government that would have to rely on SNP support?

[afleitch]

The unionist press in Scotland are raging over not having the tax cut. Lot's of 'Sturgeon under pressure' pieces. Under pressure from who? She get's to do something left wing without any effort.

Meanwhile globally a budget designed to appeal to investors as looks them. They might be ruthless capitalists but they aren't stupid.

[afleitch]

Of all the articles that have been written on UK politics this year, Matthew Lynn’s Spectator piece last month might age the worst. The first paragraph:

Who is Sunak kidding with his warnings about sterling?
There will be a run on sterling. The gilts market will be in freefall. And the FTSE will tumble as global investors take fright and sell off every form of British asset. It might take only a few days, or the government might stagger through until the end of September, but before long Liz Truss and her new Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng will have been forced to call in the IMF to stabilise a collapsing economy. That is, at least, according to the former Chancellor Rishi Sunak. With just a few desperate days left in his doomer leadership campaign, he has declared his opponent's tax and spending plans so wild and reckless they risk a full-blown sterling crisis of the sort we have not seen since the 1970s.

https://amp.spectator.co.uk/article/rishi-sunak-s-petulant-attempt-to-start-a-run-on-the-pound/amp

Sure, we aren’t about to call in the IMF - but man, the schadenfreude.

Yes.

He tweeted this

https://mobile.twitter.com/telebusiness/status/1574353295413501952

Which makes me fear this will now happen.