It is indeed as Milke says an extraordinary story.
The Sun claims it to be a Labour smear but all the others reckon it is a No.10 hatchet job. It bears all the hallmarks of Johnson's revenge. Oppose him and he will shaft you.
There is a problem of course with this. And that is that someone like Sunak, or his family and allies, will expose some more of Johnson's many skeletons.
Regardless of the origins of the story, I suggest that Sunak is now finished as a potential political leader. The idea of a non-dom tax avoiding spouse of a multi-millionaire Chancellor at a time of such huge financial squeeze is just absurd.
Even one of my most loyal tory friends thinks Sunak is totally unsuitable for the job.
He is indeed unsuitable for the job, but not because of his wife's tax status. It's his poor management of the economy and pubilc finances and lack of any solution to Britain's long-term economic problems (in particular chronically low productivity outside a few industries and regions and a disastrously over-regulated and volatile housing market) that are the issue.
I don't disagree with any of those points but I don't think they contradict the personal unsuitability? It's both together imho. This might be a Left-Right point of difference, and some might accuse of me of the politics of envy, but the idea that in the midst of all this incredible squeeze on our finances you should have as Chancellor, or PM, a multi-millionaire ex-banker hedge fund manager with a mega rich non-dom tax avoiding spouse just takes the mick.
It simply won't wash with the voters. Not at this time. A few on here might say it doesn't matter but all that means is that it doesn't matter to them. I believe that for a significant majority of people this does matter. As I say, a lifelong ultra-loyal tory friend of mine has been telling me for months that Sunak is completely unsuitable.
I think that if the economy were growing at 5% per year while all other countries stagnated and taxes were falling because of his brilliant reforms, I wouldn't give a damn about his wife's (perfectly legal) tax status. It's his poor performance in the job that is the key factor. The rest is irrelevant fluff.
Same with whatever parties the PM attended for a few minutes in his own garden.
FPT @HYUFD You responded to a post of mine with a typical 'so what ' and 'sneering liberal elite'.
Sometimes some of us make posts that have no political point at all. I posted something just to show the humour of the British soldiers that I was aware of because of my contacts that might entertain others here and you read something completely different into it.
You really don't understand others posts and completely miss the point often. It was just a bit of humour.
If you remember from posts a week or so ago it was me who took the defence of the Falklands more seriously than you, probably because I lived through it and knew soldiers that went there and had previous contact with it unlike you who just trivialised the defence of the islands.
Very good post and especially your last paragraph
Bluff Cove with the loss of Welsh guards took place on my daughters birthday (8th June 1982) and we watched in horror as events unfolded.
It was declared an Argentine victory and delayed the ground attack on Port Stanley by 2 days
@HYUFD hasn't a clue just how touch and go it was a times
FPT @HYUFD You responded to a post of mine with a typical 'so what ' and 'sneering liberal elite'.
Sometimes some of us make posts that have no political point at all. I posted something just to show the humour of the British soldiers that I was aware of because of my contacts that might entertain others here and you read something completely different into it.
You really don't understand others posts and completely miss the point often. It was just a bit of humour.
If you remember from posts a week or so ago it was me who took the defence of the Falklands more seriously than you, probably because I lived through it and knew soldiers that went there and had previous contact with it unlike you who just trivialised the defence of the islands.
Very good post and especially your last paragraph
Bluff Cove with the loss of Welsh guards took place on my daughters birthday (8th June 1982) and we watched in horror as events unfolded.
It was declared an Argentine victory and delayed the ground attack on Port Stanley by 2 days
@HYUFD hasn't a clue just how touch and go it was a times
Quite right. It could have been a majort disaster (and was, in parts - e.g. Atlantic Conveyor, Bluff Cove).
It is indeed as Milke says an extraordinary story.
The Sun claims it to be a Labour smear but all the others reckon it is a No.10 hatchet job. It bears all the hallmarks of Johnson's revenge. Oppose him and he will shaft you.
There is a problem of course with this. And that is that someone like Sunak, or his family and allies, will expose some more of Johnson's many skeletons.
Regardless of the origins of the story, I suggest that Sunak is now finished as a potential political leader. The idea of a non-dom tax avoiding spouse of a multi-millionaire Chancellor at a time of such huge financial squeeze is just absurd.
Even one of my most loyal tory friends thinks Sunak is totally unsuitable for the job.
He is indeed unsuitable for the job, but not because of his wife's tax status. It's his poor management of the economy and pubilc finances and lack of any solution to Britain's long-term economic problems (in particular chronically low productivity outside a few industries and regions and a disastrously over-regulated and volatile housing market) that are the issue.
I don't disagree with any of those points but I don't think they contradict the personal unsuitability? It's both together imho. This might be a Left-Right point of difference, and some might accuse of me of the politics of envy, but the idea that in the midst of all this incredible squeeze on our finances you should have as Chancellor, or PM, a multi-millionaire ex-banker hedge fund manager with a mega rich non-dom tax avoiding spouse just takes the mick.
It simply won't wash with the voters. Not at this time. A few on here might say it doesn't matter but all that means is that it doesn't matter to them. I believe that for a significant majority of people this does matter. As I say, a lifelong ultra-loyal tory friend of mine has been telling me for months that Sunak is completely unsuitable.
I think that if the economy were growing at 5% per year while all other countries stagnated and taxes were falling because of his brilliant reforms, I wouldn't give a damn about his wife's (perfectly legal) tax status. It's his poor performance in the job that is the key factor. The rest is irrelevant fluff.
Same with whatever parties the PM attended for a few minutes in his own garden.
Rishi has only himself to blame with such a tin eared budget, though the optics of his wife's status is dreadful
I would have thought it would be obvious by now that Johnson never sacks people because of negative press reports. It is in my opinion an admirable quality of his. Sunak will stay unless he falls out with the PM. I know the press are also speculating about that too but I suspect that speculation is all it is.
"Admirable"? Whence is the anti-Sunak briefing coming, according to some media reports?
Good morning everybody. I wasn't sure that there was much new to say about the Falklands, but there was an interesting programme on ITV last night about the Royal Marine garrison on the islands who, completely outnumbered and outgunned, were accused by the 'popular press' of not fighting hard enough. They were in an even worse position than the defenders of Hong Kong in 1941 but fortunately didn't face such a ruthless enemy.
I would have thought it would be obvious by now that Johnson never sacks people because of negative press reports. It is in my opinion an admirable quality of his.
It is another manifestation of his malignant narcissism, and guarantees wholly unsuitable people remain in post.
It is indeed as Milke says an extraordinary story.
The Sun claims it to be a Labour smear but all the others reckon it is a No.10 hatchet job. It bears all the hallmarks of Johnson's revenge. Oppose him and he will shaft you.
There is a problem of course with this. And that is that someone like Sunak, or his family and allies, will expose some more of Johnson's many skeletons.
Regardless of the origins of the story, I suggest that Sunak is now finished as a potential political leader. The idea of a non-dom tax avoiding spouse of a multi-millionaire Chancellor at a time of such huge financial squeeze is just absurd.
Even one of my most loyal tory friends thinks Sunak is totally unsuitable for the job.
He is indeed unsuitable for the job, but not because of his wife's tax status. It's his poor management of the economy and pubilc finances and lack of any solution to Britain's long-term economic problems (in particular chronically low productivity outside a few industries and regions and a disastrously over-regulated and volatile housing market) that are the issue.
I don't disagree with any of those points but I don't think they contradict the personal unsuitability? It's both together imho. This might be a Left-Right point of difference, and some might accuse of me of the politics of envy, but the idea that in the midst of all this incredible squeeze on our finances you should have as Chancellor, or PM, a multi-millionaire ex-banker hedge fund manager with a mega rich non-dom tax avoiding spouse just takes the mick.
It simply won't wash with the voters. Not at this time. A few on here might say it doesn't matter but all that means is that it doesn't matter to them. I believe that for a significant majority of people this does matter. As I say, a lifelong ultra-loyal tory friend of mine has been telling me for months that Sunak is completely unsuitable.
I think that if the economy were growing at 5% per year while all other countries stagnated and taxes were falling because of his brilliant reforms, I wouldn't give a damn about his wife's (perfectly legal) tax status. It's his poor performance in the job that is the key factor. The rest is irrelevant fluff.
Same with whatever parties the PM attended for a few minutes in his own garden.
Rishi has only himself to blame with such a tin eared budget, though the optics of his wife's status is dreadful
Boris must have signed off the budget.
It is curious how yet again he escapes any blame, despite being the common thread through all the governments failures.
Good morning everybody. I wasn't sure that there was much new to say about the Falklands, but there was an interesting programme on ITV last night about the Royal Marine garrison on the islands who, completely outnumbered and outgunned, were accused by the 'popular press' of not fighting hard enough. They were in an even worse position than the defenders of Hong Kong in 1941 but fortunately didn't face such a ruthless enemy.
Quite.A few score booties (more than usual because of a changeover, but with some detached to S Georgia) plus some sailors and Falklands territorials versus a force of over 20 Amtracs and plenty of Agrentinians.
It is indeed as Milke says an extraordinary story.
The Sun claims it to be a Labour smear but all the others reckon it is a No.10 hatchet job. It bears all the hallmarks of Johnson's revenge. Oppose him and he will shaft you.
There is a problem of course with this. And that is that someone like Sunak, or his family and allies, will expose some more of Johnson's many skeletons.
Regardless of the origins of the story, I suggest that Sunak is now finished as a potential political leader. The idea of a non-dom tax avoiding spouse of a multi-millionaire Chancellor at a time of such huge financial squeeze is just absurd.
Even one of my most loyal tory friends thinks Sunak is totally unsuitable for the job.
He is indeed unsuitable for the job, but not because of his wife's tax status. It's his poor management of the economy and pubilc finances and lack of any solution to Britain's long-term economic problems (in particular chronically low productivity outside a few industries and regions and a disastrously over-regulated and volatile housing market) that are the issue.
I don't disagree with any of those points but I don't think they contradict the personal unsuitability? It's both together imho. This might be a Left-Right point of difference, and some might accuse of me of the politics of envy, but the idea that in the midst of all this incredible squeeze on our finances you should have as Chancellor, or PM, a multi-millionaire ex-banker hedge fund manager with a mega rich non-dom tax avoiding spouse just takes the mick.
It simply won't wash with the voters. Not at this time. A few on here might say it doesn't matter but all that means is that it doesn't matter to them. I believe that for a significant majority of people this does matter. As I say, a lifelong ultra-loyal tory friend of mine has been telling me for months that Sunak is completely unsuitable.
I think that if the economy were growing at 5% per year while all other countries stagnated and taxes were falling because of his brilliant reforms, I wouldn't give a damn about his wife's (perfectly legal) tax status. It's his poor performance in the job that is the key factor. The rest is irrelevant fluff.
Same with whatever parties the PM attended for a few minutes in his own garden.
Rishi has only himself to blame with such a tin eared budget, though the optics of his wife's status is dreadful
Boris must have signed off the budget.
It is curious how yet again he escapes any blame, despite being the common thread through all the governments failures.
The COE takes the credit or blame for their budgets
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
It is indeed as Milke says an extraordinary story.
The Sun claims it to be a Labour smear but all the others reckon it is a No.10 hatchet job. It bears all the hallmarks of Johnson's revenge. Oppose him and he will shaft you.
There is a problem of course with this. And that is that someone like Sunak, or his family and allies, will expose some more of Johnson's many skeletons.
Regardless of the origins of the story, I suggest that Sunak is now finished as a potential political leader. The idea of a non-dom tax avoiding spouse of a multi-millionaire Chancellor at a time of such huge financial squeeze is just absurd.
Even one of my most loyal tory friends thinks Sunak is totally unsuitable for the job.
He is indeed unsuitable for the job, but not because of his wife's tax status. It's his poor management of the economy and pubilc finances and lack of any solution to Britain's long-term economic problems (in particular chronically low productivity outside a few industries and regions and a disastrously over-regulated and volatile housing market) that are the issue.
I don't disagree with any of those points but I don't think they contradict the personal unsuitability? It's both together imho. This might be a Left-Right point of difference, and some might accuse of me of the politics of envy, but the idea that in the midst of all this incredible squeeze on our finances you should have as Chancellor, or PM, a multi-millionaire ex-banker hedge fund manager with a mega rich non-dom tax avoiding spouse just takes the mick.
It simply won't wash with the voters. Not at this time. A few on here might say it doesn't matter but all that means is that it doesn't matter to them. I believe that for a significant majority of people this does matter. As I say, a lifelong ultra-loyal tory friend of mine has been telling me for months that Sunak is completely unsuitable.
I think that if the economy were growing at 5% per year while all other countries stagnated and taxes were falling because of his brilliant reforms, I wouldn't give a damn about his wife's (perfectly legal) tax status. It's his poor performance in the job that is the key factor. The rest is irrelevant fluff.
Same with whatever parties the PM attended for a few minutes in his own garden.
Rishi has only himself to blame with such a tin eared budget, though the optics of his wife's status is dreadful
Boris must have signed off the budget.
It is curious how yet again he escapes any blame, despite being the common thread through all the governments failures.
The COE takes the credit or blame for their budgets
In this government Boris takes the credit, anyone else takes the blame.
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
Not a coincidence. Boris sacked all the talent because they threatened him. For example, Rory Stewart should be Foreign Secretary, not Chesse obsessed Truss. Hunt should be in the cabinet. Gauke should be chancellor.
Good morning everybody. I wasn't sure that there was much new to say about the Falklands, but there was an interesting programme on ITV last night about the Royal Marine garrison on the islands who, completely outnumbered and outgunned, were accused by the 'popular press' of not fighting hard enough. They were in an even worse position than the defenders of Hong Kong in 1941 but fortunately didn't face such a ruthless enemy.
Quite.A few score booties (more than usual because of a changeover, but with some detached to S Georgia) plus some sailors and Falklands territorials versus a force of over 20 Amtracs and plenty of Agrentinians.
As my ex-para mate put it, the crack Argentine invaders and Royal Marines shot at each other for two hours with no casualties on either side.
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
I think that's slightly unfair, since politics is being events-driven at the moment. Covid, the war in Ukraine and the resultant economic woes leaves precious little room for new ideas or vision. The government has to concentrate on sailing these choppy seas.
And you know what? It hasn't done too badly on Covid, and has been very good with the war in Ukraine.
As for hope: that depends on the individual. I don't see Starmer singing "Things can only get better," either. He is an utterly uninspiring individual. I'll still probably vote for him over Johnson, though. (local candidates notwithstanding).
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
That's what happens when they are all forced to swear allegiance to a bran dead project like Brexit
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
Not a coincidence. Boris sacked all the talent because they threatened him. For example, Rory Stewart should be Foreign Secretary, not Chesse obsessed Truss. Hunt should be in the cabinet. Gauke should be chancellor.
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
And yet we live in a country with full employment, how did that happen?
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
Not a coincidence. Boris sacked all the talent because they threatened him. For example, Rory Stewart should be Foreign Secretary, not Chesse obsessed Truss. Hunt should be in the cabinet. Gauke should be chancellor.
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
Not a coincidence. Boris sacked all the talent because they threatened him. For example, Rory Stewart should be Foreign Secretary, not Chesse obsessed Truss. Hunt should be in the cabinet. Gauke should be chancellor.
An EU dream team you mean
No, whilst Boris chopped off the left wing of his party over Brexit the fact remains (pun not intended) that in doing so he lost a pool of talent. He should have found a way to live with them. He’s a bit insecure for that.
It is indeed as Milke says an extraordinary story.
The Sun claims it to be a Labour smear but all the others reckon it is a No.10 hatchet job. It bears all the hallmarks of Johnson's revenge. Oppose him and he will shaft you.
There is a problem of course with this. And that is that someone like Sunak, or his family and allies, will expose some more of Johnson's many skeletons.
Regardless of the origins of the story, I suggest that Sunak is now finished as a potential political leader. The idea of a non-dom tax avoiding spouse of a multi-millionaire Chancellor at a time of such huge financial squeeze is just absurd.
Even one of my most loyal tory friends thinks Sunak is totally unsuitable for the job.
He is indeed unsuitable for the job, but not because of his wife's tax status. It's his poor management of the economy and pubilc finances and lack of any solution to Britain's long-term economic problems (in particular chronically low productivity outside a few industries and regions and a disastrously over-regulated and volatile housing market) that are the issue.
I don't disagree with any of those points but I don't think they contradict the personal unsuitability? It's both together imho. This might be a Left-Right point of difference, and some might accuse of me of the politics of envy, but the idea that in the midst of all this incredible squeeze on our finances you should have as Chancellor, or PM, a multi-millionaire ex-banker hedge fund manager with a mega rich non-dom tax avoiding spouse just takes the mick.
It simply won't wash with the voters. Not at this time. A few on here might say it doesn't matter but all that means is that it doesn't matter to them. I believe that for a significant majority of people this does matter. As I say, a lifelong ultra-loyal tory friend of mine has been telling me for months that Sunak is completely unsuitable.
I think that if the economy were growing at 5% per year while all other countries stagnated and taxes were falling because of his brilliant reforms, I wouldn't give a damn about his wife's (perfectly legal) tax status. It's his poor performance in the job that is the key factor. The rest is irrelevant fluff.
Same with whatever parties the PM attended for a few minutes in his own garden.
Rishi has only himself to blame with such a tin eared budget, though the optics of his wife's status is dreadful
Boris must have signed off the budget.
It is curious how yet again he escapes any blame, despite being the common thread through all the governments failures.
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
Not a coincidence. Boris sacked all the talent because they threatened him. For example, Rory Stewart should be Foreign Secretary, not Chesse obsessed Truss. Hunt should be in the cabinet. Gauke should be chancellor.
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
Not a coincidence. Boris sacked all the talent because they threatened him. For example, Rory Stewart should be Foreign Secretary, not Chesse obsessed Truss. Hunt should be in the cabinet. Gauke should be chancellor.
An EU dream team you mean
No, whilst Boris chopped off the left wing of his party over Brexit the fact remains (pun not intended) that in doing so he lost a pool of talent. He should have found a way to live with them. He’s a bit insecure for that.
Bad Dog won't feel insecure while he's got Carrie on-side. If he manages to upset her, the cards will come tumbling down.
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
I think that's slightly unfair, since politics is being events-driven at the moment. Covid, the war in Ukraine and the resultant economic woes leaves precious little room for new ideas or vision. The government has to concentrate on sailing these choppy seas.
And you know what? It hasn't done too badly on Covid, and has been very good with the war in Ukraine.
As for hope: that depends on the individual. I don't see Starmer singing "Things can only get better," either. He is an utterly uninspiring individual. I'll still probably vote for him over Johnson, though. (local candidates notwithstanding).
Has Johnson done well in dealing with these shocks?
On Covid he did well on vaccines, very badly on everything else; overall mediocre compared with West European peers. Mixed bag
Ukraine: done well on early supply of weapons, and general enthusiasm for the Ukrainian cause. Poor on refugees. Pass.
Brexit: he helped create the problem in the first place and has mishandled the implementation since. Fail.
Cost of living. Complete failure to deal with this issue, exacerbated by Brexit and poor handling of the economic consequences of Covid. Missed chance to do something in the Spring Statement. Other countries struggle with this issue too but their failure isn't quite so total.
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
Not a coincidence. Boris sacked all the talent because they threatened him. For example, Rory Stewart should be Foreign Secretary, not Chesse obsessed Truss. Hunt should be in the cabinet. Gauke should be chancellor.
An EU dream team you mean
Well, they are so much more competent.
I can understand that view from the remain lobby
A Conservative party they valued ideological purity over pragmatic talent ceased to be the Conservative party.
Labour better hope so - it isn't going to want to see many 35% swings against it in the locals!
Yesterday local results so far indicate the continuation of the theme that lib dems are doing well, conservatives much as expected, but labour underperforming
Indeed I believe the conservatives took a seat and a council off labour last night
The national polls seem to underplay the lib dems at labours benefit, and certainly labour are going to have to improve their local performance record so far in may
Good morning everybody. I wasn't sure that there was much new to say about the Falklands, but there was an interesting programme on ITV last night about the Royal Marine garrison on the islands who, completely outnumbered and outgunned, were accused by the 'popular press' of not fighting hard enough. They were in an even worse position than the defenders of Hong Kong in 1941 but fortunately didn't face such a ruthless enemy.
Quite.A few score booties (more than usual because of a changeover, but with some detached to S Georgia) plus some sailors and Falklands territorials versus a force of over 20 Amtracs and plenty of Agrentinians.
As my ex-para mate put it, the crack Argentine invaders and Royal Marines shot at each other for two hours with no casualties on either side.
On the Falklands, the Marines were somewhat restrained by the Governor, who wanted a demonstration of resistance, rather than a battle to the death.
On South Georgia, the Marines actually repulsed the initial landing. If one CG round had hit a few inches from where it did, they would have blown up the corvette commanding the landing.
Labour better hope so - it isn't going to want to see many 35% swings against it in the locals!
Yesterday local results so far indicate the continuation of the theme that lib dems are doing well, conservatives much as expected, but labour underperforming
Indeed I believe the conservatives took a seat and a council off labour last night
The national polls seem to underplay the lib dems at labours benefit, and certainly labour are going to have to improve their local performance record so far in may
The LibDems should do well because they fell so far. I welcome that, it’s like old times. The anti Tory vote gets bigger and more organised. Rejoice.
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
Not a coincidence. Boris sacked all the talent because they threatened him. For example, Rory Stewart should be Foreign Secretary, not Chesse obsessed Truss. Hunt should be in the cabinet. Gauke should be chancellor.
An EU dream team you mean
Well, they are so much more competent.
I can understand that view from the remain lobby
A Conservative party they valued ideological purity over pragmatic talent ceased to be the Conservative party.
The fact is remain lost a very winnable argument on the EU, and now even labour have accepted there is no returning to the EU
The UK - EU need to come together, especially post Ukraine and trade needs to be at the front of this with a much more cooperative attitude on both sides
It is indeed as Milke says an extraordinary story.
The Sun claims it to be a Labour smear but all the others reckon it is a No.10 hatchet job. It bears all the hallmarks of Johnson's revenge. Oppose him and he will shaft you.
There is a problem of course with this. And that is that someone like Sunak, or his family and allies, will expose some more of Johnson's many skeletons.
Regardless of the origins of the story, I suggest that Sunak is now finished as a potential political leader. The idea of a non-dom tax avoiding spouse of a multi-millionaire Chancellor at a time of such huge financial squeeze is just absurd.
Even one of my most loyal tory friends thinks Sunak is totally unsuitable for the job.
He is indeed unsuitable for the job, but not because of his wife's tax status. It's his poor management of the economy and pubilc finances and lack of any solution to Britain's long-term economic problems (in particular chronically low productivity outside a few industries and regions and a disastrously over-regulated and volatile housing market) that are the issue.
I don't disagree with any of those points but I don't think they contradict the personal unsuitability? It's both together imho. This might be a Left-Right point of difference, and some might accuse of me of the politics of envy, but the idea that in the midst of all this incredible squeeze on our finances you should have as Chancellor, or PM, a multi-millionaire ex-banker hedge fund manager with a mega rich non-dom tax avoiding spouse just takes the mick.
It simply won't wash with the voters. Not at this time. A few on here might say it doesn't matter but all that means is that it doesn't matter to them. I believe that for a significant majority of people this does matter. As I say, a lifelong ultra-loyal tory friend of mine has been telling me for months that Sunak is completely unsuitable.
The rest is irrelevant fluff.
Same with whatever parties the PM attended for a few minutes in his own garden.
But I'm guessing that's because you are comfortably well off. You can afford to think it is irrelevant fluff.
For most of the rest of this country, often unrepresented on pb's demographic, it really does matter.
I'm not taking a pop as such. Good luck to you. I'm just saying you are unintentionally out of touch with the nation on this.
Labour better hope so - it isn't going to want to see many 35% swings against it in the locals!
Yesterday local results so far indicate the continuation of the theme that lib dems are doing well, conservatives much as expected, but labour underperforming
Indeed I believe the conservatives took a seat and a council off labour last night
The national polls seem to underplay the lib dems at labours benefit, and certainly labour are going to have to improve their local performance record so far in may
At this stage in the electoral cycle and with everything that has happened over the past 6 months, for the tories to be taking a seat off of Labour is incredible. Labour should be winning everything, not losing.
Let's be blunt. Though I'll frame this in the form of a question. Since putting the first man in space in 1961, what has Russia achieved?
To take that seriously, a massive problem for the USSR was culture. In the West a "Cultural Revolution" relating to structure, deference, personal lives etc occurred. This in turn fed into the economy - and gave rise to a series of technological revolutions.
The USSR remained stuck in the pre 1950s concept of social order and never went through this revolution.
Rishi's hopes of becoming party leader and PM are dead. But I'm not sure that means he's going to be booted out of No 11 anytime soon.
Better a wounded chancellor next door than a king across the water on the back benches…to mix metaphors.
I suspect Sunak will quit politics at the next GE.
Not so sure. People (ie everyone on PB) are quick to say this or that politician will quit of their own volition. But when does it ever happen. Ans: almost never. Perhaps after BoJo toxified the Cons party and all the normal/sane Cons MPs left.
Politicians are driven to a degree that we probably can't imagine, making sacrifices, spending huge amounts of time, energy and money, and in many cases simply outlasting those they are competing against (internally) before going on to fight against the other parties which requires them to do it all over again. They give up very rarely; it's not why they became politicians. Those who quit did so while candidates to be PPC.
As a point of order, it's clearly awful that people died fighting for the Falklands and it's right to respect that but that's not a de facto reason for declaring the reason was valid. Go down that line and in 30 years Russians will be arguing that they shouldn't give up on Ukraine because their soldiers died fighting for it etc.
The idea that in 2022 Britain should rule over a lump of rock 8000 miles away is ludicrous. The sort of nonsense colonialism which will be corrected with the inevitable march of progressive thinking.
However, I'm more vexed about our disgraceful shenanigans in the Chagos islands. Just appalling British behaviour.
Labour better hope so - it isn't going to want to see many 35% swings against it in the locals!
Yesterday local results so far indicate the continuation of the theme that lib dems are doing well, conservatives much as expected, but labour underperforming
Indeed I believe the conservatives took a seat and a council off labour last night
The national polls seem to underplay the lib dems at labours benefit, and certainly labour are going to have to improve their local performance record so far in may
The LibDems should do well because they fell so far. I welcome that, it’s like old times. The anti Tory vote gets bigger and more organised. Rejoice.
I am not sure how your comment squares with lib dem's good performances and labours' sub optimal in the locals
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
Not a coincidence. Boris sacked all the talent because they threatened him. For example, Rory Stewart should be Foreign Secretary, not Chesse obsessed Truss. Hunt should be in the cabinet. Gauke should be chancellor.
An EU dream team you mean
Well, they are so much more competent.
I can understand that view from the remain lobby
A Conservative party they valued ideological purity over pragmatic talent ceased to be the Conservative party.
The fact is remain lost a very winnable argument on the EU, and now even labour have accepted there is no returning to the EU
The UK - EU need to come together, especially post Ukraine and trade needs to be at the front of this with a much more cooperative attitude on both sides
It is indeed as Milke says an extraordinary story.
The Sun claims it to be a Labour smear but all the others reckon it is a No.10 hatchet job. It bears all the hallmarks of Johnson's revenge. Oppose him and he will shaft you.
There is a problem of course with this. And that is that someone like Sunak, or his family and allies, will expose some more of Johnson's many skeletons.
Regardless of the origins of the story, I suggest that Sunak is now finished as a potential political leader. The idea of a non-dom tax avoiding spouse of a multi-millionaire Chancellor at a time of such huge financial squeeze is just absurd.
Even one of my most loyal tory friends thinks Sunak is totally unsuitable for the job.
He is indeed unsuitable for the job, but not because of his wife's tax status. It's his poor management of the economy and pubilc finances and lack of any solution to Britain's long-term economic problems (in particular chronically low productivity outside a few industries and regions and a disastrously over-regulated and volatile housing market) that are the issue.
I don't disagree with any of those points but I don't think they contradict the personal unsuitability? It's both together imho. This might be a Left-Right point of difference, and some might accuse of me of the politics of envy, but the idea that in the midst of all this incredible squeeze on our finances you should have as Chancellor, or PM, a multi-millionaire ex-banker hedge fund manager with a mega rich non-dom tax avoiding spouse just takes the mick.
It simply won't wash with the voters. Not at this time. A few on here might say it doesn't matter but all that means is that it doesn't matter to them. I believe that for a significant majority of people this does matter. As I say, a lifelong ultra-loyal tory friend of mine has been telling me for months that Sunak is completely unsuitable.
The rest is irrelevant fluff.
Same with whatever parties the PM attended for a few minutes in his own garden.
But I'm guessing that's because you are comfortably well off. You can afford to think it is irrelevant fluff.
For most of the rest of this country, often unrepresented on pb's demographic, it really does matter.
I'm not taking a pop as such. Good luck to you. I'm just saying you are unintentionally out of touch with the nation on this.
@Fishing's avatar tells you all you need to know. An unreconstructed Thatcherite, I'd guess.
Labour better hope so - it isn't going to want to see many 35% swings against it in the locals!
Yesterday local results so far indicate the continuation of the theme that lib dems are doing well, conservatives much as expected, but labour underperforming
Indeed I believe the conservatives took a seat and a council off labour last night
The national polls seem to underplay the lib dems at labours benefit, and certainly labour are going to have to improve their local performance record so far in may
At this stage in the electoral cycle and with everything that has happened over the past 6 months, for the tories to be taking a seat off of Labour is incredible. Labour should be winning everything, not losing.
Please have the courage to come back here on May 6th Nerys and engage with post-locals results debate.
There should be No Representation Without Taxation!
Why am I hearing this, echoing in my head?
"If you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere. You don't understand what citizenship means."
She was taking to task the rootless managers of British businesses who behaved "as though they have more in common with international elites than with the people down the road".
Rishi's hopes of becoming party leader and PM are dead. But I'm not sure that means he's going to be booted out of No 11 anytime soon.
Better a wounded chancellor next door than a king across the water on the back benches…to mix metaphors.
I suspect Sunak will quit politics at the next GE.
Better for Boris's position as Conservative leader, perhaps.
But better for the Conservative party, and its chances of re-election?
Given the that Rishi was on the skids anyway, and bottled booting out Boris when he had the chance... If this is from No 10, it seems rather excessive.
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
Not a coincidence. Boris sacked all the talent because they threatened him. For example, Rory Stewart should be Foreign Secretary, not Chesse obsessed Truss. Hunt should be in the cabinet. Gauke should be chancellor.
An EU dream team you mean
Well, they are so much more competent.
I can understand that view from the remain lobby
A Conservative party they valued ideological purity over pragmatic talent ceased to be the Conservative party.
The fact is remain lost a very winnable argument on the EU, and now even labour have accepted there is no returning to the EU
The UK - EU need to come together, especially post Ukraine and trade needs to be at the front of this with a much more cooperative attitude on both sides
Your obsession with Brexit is undermining you.
It is not my obsession with brexit on here
Brexit has happened and unfortunately so many simply refuse to accept it and support a better relationship with the EU while remaining outside
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
Not a coincidence. Boris sacked all the talent because they threatened him. For example, Rory Stewart should be Foreign Secretary, not Chesse obsessed Truss. Hunt should be in the cabinet. Gauke should be chancellor.
An EU dream team you mean
Well, they are so much more competent.
I can understand that view from the remain lobby
It's not about Brexit, although those that forecast the carnage might be smarter than those who did not.
Don't you see that Johnson surrounds himself with nincompoops in order to make his own chaos look reasonably ordered? When someone shines like Sunak, they are brutally scythed down.
As a point of order, it's clearly awful that people died fighting for the Falklands and it's right to respect that but that's not a de facto reason for declaring the reason was valid. Go down that line and in 30 years Russians will be arguing that they shouldn't give up on Ukraine because their soldiers died fighting for it etc.
The idea that in 2022 Britain should rule over a lump of rock 8000 miles away is ludicrous. The sort of nonsense colonialism which will be corrected with the inevitable march of progressive thinking.
However, I'm more vexed about our disgraceful shenanigans in the Chagos islands. Just appalling British behaviour.
Just my POV, thanks.
There are two issues:
1. Should the UK own The Falklands; and 2. Should a country not happy with that ownership invade it.
The first is a topic for discussion and the mad evolution of our various territories and possessions have lead to a situation whereby The Falkland Islanders want to remain British and we are all about self-determination of indigenous peoples, now, aren't we.
The answer to the second is very clearly no and hence we were justified in the campaign. Same with Op Granby but not so clearly with Op Telic, for example.
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
Not a coincidence. Boris sacked all the talent because they threatened him. For example, Rory Stewart should be Foreign Secretary, not Chesse obsessed Truss. Hunt should be in the cabinet. Gauke should be chancellor.
An EU dream team you mean
Well, they are so much more competent.
I can understand that view from the remain lobby
A Conservative party they valued ideological purity over pragmatic talent ceased to be the Conservative party.
The fact is remain lost a very winnable argument on the EU, and now even labour have accepted there is no returning to the EU
The UK - EU need to come together, especially post Ukraine and trade needs to be at the front of this with a much more cooperative attitude on both sides
Your obsession with Brexit is undermining you.
It is not my obsession with brexit on here
Brexit has happened and unfortunately so many simply refuse to accept it and support a better relationship with the EI while remaining outside
You brought it up. You might like to accept that you view the world through that lens.
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
Not a coincidence. Boris sacked all the talent because they threatened him. For example, Rory Stewart should be Foreign Secretary, not Chesse obsessed Truss. Hunt should be in the cabinet. Gauke should be chancellor.
An EU dream team you mean
Well, they are so much more competent.
I can understand that view from the remain lobby
A Conservative party they valued ideological purity over pragmatic talent ceased to be the Conservative party.
The fact is remain lost a very winnable argument on the EU, and now even labour have accepted there is no returning to the EU
The UK - EU need to come together, especially post Ukraine and trade needs to be at the front of this with a much more cooperative attitude on both sides
Your obsession with Brexit is undermining you.
It is not my obsession with brexit on here
Brexit has happened and unfortunately so many simply refuse to accept it and support a better relationship with the EI while remaining outside
You brought it up. You might like to accept that you view the world through that lens.
I view the subject entirely as expressed in my last sentence
As a point of order, it's clearly awful that people died fighting for the Falklands and it's right to respect that but that's not a de facto reason for declaring the reason was valid. Go down that line and in 30 years Russians will be arguing that they shouldn't give up on Ukraine because their soldiers died fighting for it etc.
The idea that in 2022 Britain should rule over a lump of rock 8000 miles away is ludicrous. The sort of nonsense colonialism which will be corrected with the inevitable march of progressive thinking.
However, I'm more vexed about our disgraceful shenanigans in the Chagos islands. Just appalling British behaviour.
Just my POV, thanks.
The Falklands and Ukraine do have one common theme - the desires of the actual inhabitants conflicting with those who like tidy maps coloured in "just so"
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
I think that's slightly unfair, since politics is being events-driven at the moment. Covid, the war in Ukraine and the resultant economic woes leaves precious little room for new ideas or vision. The government has to concentrate on sailing these choppy seas.
And you know what? It hasn't done too badly on Covid, and has been very good with the war in Ukraine.
As for hope: that depends on the individual. I don't see Starmer singing "Things can only get better," either. He is an utterly uninspiring individual. I'll still probably vote for him over Johnson, though. (local candidates notwithstanding).
Has Johnson done well in dealing with these shocks?
On Covid he did well on vaccines, very badly on everything else; overall mediocre compared with West European peers. Mixed bag
Ukraine: done well on early supply of weapons, and general enthusiasm for the Ukrainian cause. Poor on refugees. Pass.
Brexit: he helped create the problem in the first place and has mishandled the implementation since. Fail.
Cost of living. Complete failure to deal with this issue, exacerbated by Brexit and poor handling of the economic consequences of Covid. Missed chance to do something in the Spring Statement. Other countries struggle with this issue too but their failure isn't quite so total.
Overall 1½ out of 4
"On Covid he did well on vaccines, very badly on everything else; overall mediocre compared with West European peers. Mixed bag"
That's rubbish. As an example we did superbly on genomics - and the fact you choose to ignore that is telling.
One of the interesting things about the Covid crisis was seeing fools almost salivating over the daily death figures, proclaiming how bad we were. It's a weird form of exceptionalism: people who like to think that we're uniquely bad.
Rishi's hopes of becoming party leader and PM are dead. But I'm not sure that means he's going to be booted out of No 11 anytime soon.
Better a wounded chancellor next door than a king across the water on the back benches…to mix metaphors.
I suspect Sunak will quit politics at the next GE.
Not so sure. People (ie everyone on PB) are quick to say this or that politician will quit of their own volition. But when does it ever happen. Ans: almost never. Perhaps after BoJo toxified the Cons party and all the normal/sane Cons MPs left.
.
I suspect the Labour Front Bench would be stronger if it included Ed Balls, Alan Milburn or Andy Burnham. Ditto the Conservatives and Dominic Grieve/Rory Stewart.
In Sunak’s case he strikes me as a man who ranks “family” (his own, at any rate) high up in his priorities and I suspect he finds these attacks on his wife hard to bear. We’ll see.
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
Not a coincidence. Boris sacked all the talent because they threatened him. For example, Rory Stewart should be Foreign Secretary, not Chesse obsessed Truss. Hunt should be in the cabinet. Gauke should be chancellor.
An EU dream team you mean
Well, they are so much more competent.
I can understand that view from the remain lobby
A Conservative party they valued ideological purity over pragmatic talent ceased to be the Conservative party.
The fact is remain lost a very winnable argument on the EU, and now even labour have accepted there is no returning to the EU
The UK - EU need to come together, especially post Ukraine and trade needs to be at the front of this with a much more cooperative attitude on both sides
Your obsession with Brexit is undermining you.
It is not my obsession with brexit on here
Brexit has happened and unfortunately so many simply refuse to accept it and support a better relationship with the EI while remaining outside
You brought it up. You might like to accept that you view the world through that lens.
I view the subject entirely as expressed in my last sentence
Rishi's hopes of becoming party leader and PM are dead. But I'm not sure that means he's going to be booted out of No 11 anytime soon.
He might walk knowing the dream is over.
Very few in modern politics seem to stay much longer than is absolutely necessary to be in with a shout at top jobs.
Indeed, Portillo, David Miliband, Blair, Osborne, Hague, Cameron, maybe now Sunak, they all seem to walk away from politics once the top job has eluded them or has ended for them.
In the past however Churchill, Attlee, Heath, Heseltine, Benn, Wilson, Thatcher, Tebbit etc all stayed in the political arena in some form whether as a backbencher or in the Lords so it could benefit from their status as elder statesmen or stateswomen. Theresa May to her credit and Ed Miliband too have stuck around well after their period at the top rank has ended to still give service to Parliament and their party and the public
I think it’s unfair to have Hague on your first list. He stuck around (with less intensity perhaps) but came back to seven successfully as Foreign Secretary.
1979: UK was sitting on a revenue bonanza from North Sea Oil, had a National Debt of just £80bn and owned all it's utilities, transport, infrastructure & millions of social homes.
2020: UK has £2.2Tn national debt & virtually no assets.
Capitalism has destroyed our kids' future
Given the state of the public finances they inherited from Gordon Brown, you have a point - it's just as well that Osborne, Hammond, Javid and Sunak didn't take Labour's advice and increase the borrowing to even more eye-watering levels, eh?
It's doubled since the Conservatives took over
Indeed. That's what happens when you inherit an eye-wateringly large deficit, followed by a unprecedented global pandemic requiring massive support.
Mind you, since 2019 the public finances have also been badly hit by the particularly insane form of Brexit which the current ex-Tory government has chosen, and you won't find me defending that.
they have had plenty time now to sort out any wrinkles, they cannot blame Labour after 14 years. They are useless tossers filling their own pockets.
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
Not a coincidence. Boris sacked all the talent because they threatened him. For example, Rory Stewart should be Foreign Secretary, not Chesse obsessed Truss. Hunt should be in the cabinet. Gauke should be chancellor.
An EU dream team you mean
Well, they are so much more competent.
I can understand that view from the remain lobby
It's not about Brexit, although those that forecast the carnage might be smarter than those who did not.
Don't you see that Johnson surrounds himself with nincompoops in order to make his own chaos look reasonably ordered? When someone shines like Sunak, they are brutally scythed down.
Actually Rishi is wholly and completely irresponsible for his fall from grace and he has nobody else to blame
As far as Boris is concerned he has done well on covid and Ukraine, and for me he failed on Paterson, wallpapergate and partygate
Labour would have had the country held down in restrictions for far longer damaging our economy considerably, and apart from a windfall tax which I understand would be greatly reduced now Shell had had to accept a 5 billion loss in its divorce from Russia, I have not heard anything credible on the economy from labour
Boris has his flaws but was astute enough to pay full whack tax for a long period before even running as Mayor. Sunak must be a thicko in extremis not to have realised this would undo him. His rise was fast but he’s had plenty of time to undo this since his ascent to Chancellor.
Yes, especially as it would be loose change for them given how loaded they are. That is what makes it so bad , he is either greedy , stupid or both.
Labour better hope so - it isn't going to want to see many 35% swings against it in the locals!
Yesterday local results so far indicate the continuation of the theme that lib dems are doing well, conservatives much as expected, but labour underperforming
Indeed I believe the conservatives took a seat and a council off labour last night
The national polls seem to underplay the lib dems at labours benefit, and certainly labour are going to have to improve their local performance record so far in may
At this stage in the electoral cycle and with everything that has happened over the past 6 months, for the tories to be taking a seat off of Labour is incredible. Labour should be winning everything, not losing.
Please have the courage to come back here on May 6th Nerys and engage with post-locals results debate.
Deal?
Absolutely, the tories should do absolutely terribly, even Blair did in 1999 when the tories gained 48 Councils at peak Blair.
The simple fact is that Labour should be doing so much better in these local by-elections when compared to the current opinion polls and where we are in the electoral cycle. All this local issues nonsense as excuses every week is just denial of the situation of when it comes to actual votes, SKS's Labour are doing very badly.
I am clearly in a small minority in finding this attack on Sunak based upon his wife's tax affairs completely wrong and frankly a bit ridiculous. So be it. We clearly want a government of people who have done nothing but sip at the public purse, who are financially dependent upon their office and are cravenly obedient as a result.
The tax affairs of very rich people are always going to be complicated and Mrs Sunak does not hold and has not sought any public office. It remains a completely absurd basis to undermine someone who has.
As I made clear at the time I thought Rishi's latest financial statement was disastrous. He is open to a range of criticisms for what he did and what he failed to do, especially the latter, and all of that is fair enough. But this wife stuff? Not for me.
The head of UK ports said this morning that last weekends chaos was down to the loss of P & O ships (down one third in capacity) and terrible cross channel weather
He did not mention brexit once and said that all the other ports in the UK were operating at 92% capacity
Rishi's hopes of becoming party leader and PM are dead. But I'm not sure that means he's going to be booted out of No 11 anytime soon.
Better a wounded chancellor next door than a king across the water on the back benches…to mix metaphors.
I suspect Sunak will quit politics at the next GE.
Not so sure. People (ie everyone on PB) are quick to say this or that politician will quit of their own volition. But when does it ever happen. Ans: almost never. Perhaps after BoJo toxified the Cons party and all the normal/sane Cons MPs left.
Politicians are driven to a degree that we probably can't imagine, making sacrifices, spending huge amounts of time, energy and money, and in many cases simply outlasting those they are competing against (internally) before going on to fight against the other parties which requires them to do it all over again. They give up very rarely; it's not why they became politicians. Those who quit did so while candidates to be PPC.
A person of Sunaks wealth isnt going to want to eke it out on the backbenches for years, dealing with the petty concerns of normal people in the constituency rather than shaping policy - so I suspect whether he stays on or not will depend how he thinks the Tories will do. If he thinks theyll win he'll stick around as he'll have a chance at a top job under someone. If it looks like 1997 and a long period out of office he'll jump.
"The chancellor has decided not to go to his Californian bolthole over this parliamentary recess, despite the speculation he might. Yorkshire beckons again for him, having failed to get to the US over Christmas and complaints he desperately needs a holiday."
Jeez.
There's so much tin in the ear he may as well move to Cornwall.
At some point, we have to consider the possibility that this is all a cry for help; his subconcious doesn't want to be in politics any more, but he can't say it out loud.
When I was growing up we regularly had holidays in Richmondshire. Wonderful times. Beautiful scenery. Stunning walks. Tumbling rivers. Open moors. Wide skies. Purple heather.
If it is not good enough for him then he can just go feck himself in Santa Monica.
The difference is that he works there. No matter how nice a place is, some people like to go away to reset
Rishi's hopes of becoming party leader and PM are dead. But I'm not sure that means he's going to be booted out of No 11 anytime soon.
Better a wounded chancellor next door than a king across the water on the back benches…to mix metaphors.
I suspect Sunak will quit politics at the next GE.
Better for Boris's position as Conservative leader, perhaps.
But better for the Conservative party, and its chances of re-election?
Given the that Rishi was on the skids anyway, and bottled booting out Boris when he had the chance... If this is from No 10, it seems rather excessive.
Bozo doesn't take chances and he has form for kicking people when they are down to ensure they remain down.
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
I think that's slightly unfair, since politics is being events-driven at the moment. Covid, the war in Ukraine and the resultant economic woes leaves precious little room for new ideas or vision. The government has to concentrate on sailing these choppy seas.
And you know what? It hasn't done too badly on Covid, and has been very good with the war in Ukraine.
As for hope: that depends on the individual. I don't see Starmer singing "Things can only get better," either. He is an utterly uninspiring individual. I'll still probably vote for him over Johnson, though. (local candidates notwithstanding).
Has Johnson done well in dealing with these shocks?
On Covid he did well on vaccines, very badly on everything else; overall mediocre compared with West European peers. Mixed bag
Ukraine: done well on early supply of weapons, and general enthusiasm for the Ukrainian cause. Poor on refugees. Pass.
Brexit: he helped create the problem in the first place and has mishandled the implementation since. Fail.
Cost of living. Complete failure to deal with this issue, exacerbated by Brexit and poor handling of the economic consequences of Covid. Missed chance to do something in the Spring Statement. Other countries struggle with this issue too but their failure isn't quite so total.
Overall 1½ out of 4
"On Covid he did well on vaccines, very badly on everything else; overall mediocre compared with West European peers. Mixed bag"
That's rubbish. As an example we did superbly on genomics - and the fact you choose to ignore that is telling.
One of the interesting things about the Covid crisis was seeing fools almost salivating over the daily death figures, proclaiming how bad we were. It's a weird form of exceptionalism: people who like to think that we're uniquely bad.
Johnson wasn't doing the genomics. That's why I left it out of my assessment of his performance. I think we can assume the genomics would have been done equally well if any other prime minister was in charge. I don't salivate over daily death figures, nor do I think the UK is uniquely bad, as is clear from my comment.
I am clearly in a small minority in finding this attack on Sunak based upon his wife's tax affairs completely wrong and frankly a bit ridiculous. So be it. We clearly want a government of people who have done nothing but sip at the public purse, who are financially dependent upon their office and are cravenly obedient as a result.
The tax affairs of very rich people are always going to be complicated and Mrs Sunak does not hold and has not sought any public office. It remains a completely absurd basis to undermine someone who has.
As I made clear at the time I thought Rishi's latest financial statement was disastrous. He is open to a range of criticisms for what he did and what he failed to do, especially the latter, and all of that is fair enough. But this wife stuff? Not for me.
David, you show how real Tories think , me me me , F the plebs. Given they will never be able to spend their dosh in many lifetimes and knowing how bad it would look if the COE's wife was tax avoiding , they are still so greedy they couldn't bring themselves to pay a bit of extra tax for a few years. They prefer to lie and pretend she does not reside in the UK because she wants to be buried in India. Great morals and fantastic judgement, cafring sharing Tories.
Labour better hope so - it isn't going to want to see many 35% swings against it in the locals!
Yesterday local results so far indicate the continuation of the theme that lib dems are doing well, conservatives much as expected, but labour underperforming
Indeed I believe the conservatives took a seat and a council off labour last night
The national polls seem to underplay the lib dems at labours benefit, and certainly labour are going to have to improve their local performance record so far in may
At this stage in the electoral cycle and with everything that has happened over the past 6 months, for the tories to be taking a seat off of Labour is incredible. Labour should be winning everything, not losing.
Please have the courage to come back here on May 6th Nerys and engage with post-locals results debate.
Deal?
Absolutely, the tories should do absolutely terribly, even Blair did in 1999 when the tories gained 48 Councils at peak Blair.
The simple fact is that Labour should be doing so much better in these local by-elections when compared to the current opinion polls and where we are in the electoral cycle. All this local issues nonsense as excuses every week is just denial of the situation of when it comes to actual votes, SKS's Labour are doing very badly.
Is it any wonder when Starmer does not even know what a woman is, how could the clown run the country.
As a point of order, it's clearly awful that people died fighting for the Falklands and it's right to respect that but that's not a de facto reason for declaring the reason was valid. Go down that line and in 30 years Russians will be arguing that they shouldn't give up on Ukraine because their soldiers died fighting for it etc.
The idea that in 2022 Britain should rule over a lump of rock 8000 miles away is ludicrous. The sort of nonsense colonialism which will be corrected with the inevitable march of progressive thinking.
However, I'm more vexed about our disgraceful shenanigans in the Chagos islands. Just appalling British behaviour.
Just my POV, thanks.
Rubbish. Almost all the Falkland Islands population want to remain British. The people of Ukraine do not want to be Russian however.
If anything therefore it would be colonialism for the Argentines to take the Falklands not the reverse.
It is the Americans who mainly want to keep the Chagos Islands as a military base
I am clearly in a small minority in finding this attack on Sunak based upon his wife's tax affairs completely wrong and frankly a bit ridiculous. So be it. We clearly want a government of people who have done nothing but sip at the public purse, who are financially dependent upon their office and are cravenly obedient as a result.
The tax affairs of very rich people are always going to be complicated and Mrs Sunak does not hold and has not sought any public office. It remains a completely absurd basis to undermine someone who has.
As I made clear at the time I thought Rishi's latest financial statement was disastrous. He is open to a range of criticisms for what he did and what he failed to do, especially the latter, and all of that is fair enough. But this wife stuff? Not for me.
David, you show how real Tories think , me me me , F the plebs. Given they will never be able to spend their dosh in many lifetimes and knowing how bad it would look if the COE's wife was tax avoiding , they are still so greedy they couldn't bring themselves to pay a bit of extra tax for a few years. They prefer to lie and pretend she does not reside in the UK because she wants to be buried in India. Great morals and fantastic judgement, cafring sharing Tories.
On the contrary, Sunak has come into politics rather than make tens of millions in the private sector which he easily could have done. Some may think that this is ego, some that it is a desire to give public service but either way he sure as hell didn't do it for the money.
The tax his wife has legally avoided comes from her very substantial holding in an IT company based in India which makes its profits there and trades there. It is part of an even larger holding that her family hold in that business. What right has the UK taxpayer to this money, exactly? It is not invested here, it is not made here and it is not paid here.
She pays tax on all of the money she makes in the UK which is again considerable. You could argue that as someone now resident here, if not domiciled, that we are entitled to a cut of all her earnings world wide but you can equally argue the reverse and she has complied with the rules. If her residence continues for 15 years she will have to pay that tax on that Indian income but at the moment it is taxed in India where it should be.
1979: UK was sitting on a revenue bonanza from North Sea Oil, had a National Debt of just £80bn and owned all it's utilities, transport, infrastructure & millions of social homes.
2020: UK has £2.2Tn national debt & virtually no assets.
Capitalism has destroyed our kids' future
Given the state of the public finances they inherited from Gordon Brown, you have a point - it's just as well that Osborne, Hammond, Javid and Sunak didn't take Labour's advice and increase the borrowing to even more eye-watering levels, eh?
It's doubled since the Conservatives took over
Indeed. That's what happens when you inherit an eye-wateringly large deficit, followed by a unprecedented global pandemic requiring massive support.
Mind you, since 2019 the public finances have also been badly hit by the particularly insane form of Brexit which the current ex-Tory government has chosen, and you won't find me defending that.
Brexit is hardly 'mind you', Richard. It's a Tory project which, economically damaging as it is in its own right, has also distracted them from even thinking about much that's constructive for a large part of the decade and a half they've been in power.
Labour better hope so - it isn't going to want to see many 35% swings against it in the locals!
Yesterday local results so far indicate the continuation of the theme that lib dems are doing well, conservatives much as expected, but labour underperforming
Indeed I believe the conservatives took a seat and a council off labour last night
The national polls seem to underplay the lib dems at labours benefit, and certainly labour are going to have to improve their local performance record so far in may
At this stage in the electoral cycle and with everything that has happened over the past 6 months, for the tories to be taking a seat off of Labour is incredible. Labour should be winning everything, not losing.
Please have the courage to come back here on May 6th Nerys and engage with post-locals results debate.
Deal?
Absolutely, the tories should do absolutely terribly, even Blair did in 1999 when the tories gained 48 Councils at peak Blair.
The simple fact is that Labour should be doing so much better in these local by-elections when compared to the current opinion polls and where we are in the electoral cycle. All this local issues nonsense as excuses every week is just denial of the situation of when it comes to actual votes, SKS's Labour are doing very badly.
Indeed, in the 1996 local elections Blair's Labour led Major's Tories by 14%.
Unless Starmer Labour have a big lead in May they have zero chance of a majority at the next general election, albeit big gains by the LDs and Greens at the Tories expense could suggest a hung parliament
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
Not a coincidence. Boris sacked all the talent because they threatened him. For example, Rory Stewart should be Foreign Secretary, not Chesse obsessed Truss. Hunt should be in the cabinet. Gauke should be chancellor.
An EU dream team you mean
Well, they are so much more competent.
I can understand that view from the remain lobby
It's not about Brexit, although those that forecast the carnage might be smarter than those who did not.
Don't you see that Johnson surrounds himself with nincompoops in order to make his own chaos look reasonably ordered? When someone shines like Sunak, they are brutally scythed down.
'Nincompoop' - a great word, rarely used these days, and reminds me of my late grandmother, who used it frequently. Onomatopoeic, I reckon, for Boris himself.
FPT @HYUFD You responded to a post of mine with a typical 'so what ' and 'sneering liberal elite'...
Surely he didn't do any such thing. We're regularly assured that HYUFD is invariably polite and doesn't engage in ad hominem.
To be honest that doesn't bother me. His post referred to the unsophisticated islanders which reminded me of the soldiers sense of humour and background in them calling the islanders 'Stills' which I thought posters here wouldn't be aware of and might give you all a laugh and it was interpreted as some sort of political liberal elite' post.
Rishi's hopes of becoming party leader and PM are dead. But I'm not sure that means he's going to be booted out of No 11 anytime soon.
He might walk knowing the dream is over.
Very few in modern politics seem to stay much longer than is absolutely necessary to be in with a shout at top jobs.
Indeed, Portillo, David Miliband, Blair, Osborne, Hague, Cameron, maybe now Sunak, they all seem to walk away from politics once the top job has eluded them or has ended for them.
In the past however Churchill, Attlee, Heath, Heseltine, Benn, Wilson, Thatcher, Tebbit etc all stayed in the political arena in some form whether as a backbencher or in the Lords so it could benefit from their status as elder statesmen or stateswomen. Theresa May to her credit and Ed Miliband too have stuck around well after their period at the top rank has ended to still give service to Parliament and their party and the public
I think it’s unfair to have Hague on your first list. He stuck around (with less intensity perhaps) but came back to seven successfully as Foreign Secretary.
Maybe a bit harsh on Hague then but he still left the Commons at 54
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
I think that's slightly unfair, since politics is being events-driven at the moment. Covid, the war in Ukraine and the resultant economic woes leaves precious little room for new ideas or vision. The government has to concentrate on sailing these choppy seas.
And you know what? It hasn't done too badly on Covid, and has been very good with the war in Ukraine.
As for hope: that depends on the individual. I don't see Starmer singing "Things can only get better," either. He is an utterly uninspiring individual. I'll still probably vote for him over Johnson, though. (local candidates notwithstanding).
Has Johnson done well in dealing with these shocks?
On Covid he did well on vaccines, very badly on everything else; overall mediocre compared with West European peers. Mixed bag
Ukraine: done well on early supply of weapons, and general enthusiasm for the Ukrainian cause. Poor on refugees. Pass.
Brexit: he helped create the problem in the first place and has mishandled the implementation since. Fail.
Cost of living. Complete failure to deal with this issue, exacerbated by Brexit and poor handling of the economic consequences of Covid. Missed chance to do something in the Spring Statement. Other countries struggle with this issue too but their failure isn't quite so total.
Overall 1½ out of 4
"On Covid he did well on vaccines, very badly on everything else; overall mediocre compared with West European peers. Mixed bag"
That's rubbish. As an example we did superbly on genomics - and the fact you choose to ignore that is telling.
One of the interesting things about the Covid crisis was seeing fools almost salivating over the daily death figures, proclaiming how bad we were. It's a weird form of exceptionalism: people who like to think that we're uniquely bad.
I suspect our superb performance on genomics (and vaccines) tells us more about the quality of our scientific community than about the performance of our PM.
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
And yet we live in a country with full employment, how did that happen?
The Tory talent cabinet is absolutely bare. There is nothing there. This government cannot offer ideas, vision or competence; or much hope. Johnson is the best it has. That’s how bad it is.
Not a coincidence. Boris sacked all the talent because they threatened him. For example, Rory Stewart should be Foreign Secretary, not Chesse obsessed Truss. Hunt should be in the cabinet. Gauke should be chancellor.
An EU dream team you mean
Well, they are so much more competent.
I can understand that view from the remain lobby
It's not about Brexit, although those that forecast the carnage might be smarter than those who did not.
Don't you see that Johnson surrounds himself with nincompoops in order to make his own chaos look reasonably ordered? When someone shines like Sunak, they are brutally scythed down.
'Nincompoop' - a great word, rarely used these days, and reminds me of my late grandmother, who used it frequently. Onomatopoeic, I reckon, for Boris himself.
Famously defined (I can't remember by whom) as "a man who has never seen his wife's c***"
Comments
Same with whatever parties the PM attended for a few minutes in his own garden.
Bluff Cove with the loss of Welsh guards took place on my daughters birthday (8th June 1982) and we watched in horror as events unfolded.
It was declared an Argentine victory and delayed the ground attack on Port Stanley by 2 days
@HYUFD hasn't a clue just how touch and go it was a times
The changing face of No. 10
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-changing-face-of-no-10
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/08/greenland-shark-stranded-cornwall-meningitis-death-postmortem-aoe
I wasn't sure that there was much new to say about the Falklands, but there was an interesting programme on ITV last night about the Royal Marine garrison on the islands who, completely outnumbered and outgunned, were accused by the 'popular press' of not fighting hard enough.
They were in an even worse position than the defenders of Hong Kong in 1941 but fortunately didn't face such a ruthless enemy.
It is curious how yet again he escapes any blame, despite being the common thread through all the governments failures.
https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1512205823770075140
And you know what? It hasn't done too badly on Covid, and has been very good with the war in Ukraine.
As for hope: that depends on the individual. I don't see Starmer singing "Things can only get better," either. He is an utterly uninspiring individual. I'll still probably vote for him over Johnson, though. (local candidates notwithstanding).
See this thread for an explainer, Everton FC costing Labour votes.
https://twitter.com/MattODigs/status/1511453926633218058
On Covid he did well on vaccines, very badly on everything else; overall mediocre compared with West European peers. Mixed bag
Ukraine: done well on early supply of weapons, and general enthusiasm for the Ukrainian cause. Poor on refugees. Pass.
Brexit: he helped create the problem in the first place and has mishandled the implementation since. Fail.
Cost of living. Complete failure to deal with this issue, exacerbated by Brexit and poor handling of the economic consequences of Covid. Missed chance to do something in the Spring Statement. Other countries struggle with this issue too but their failure isn't quite so total.
Overall 1½ out of 4
I suspect Sunak will quit politics at the next GE.
Indeed I believe the conservatives took a seat and a council off labour last night
The national polls seem to underplay the lib dems at labours benefit, and certainly labour are going to have to improve their local performance record so far in may
On South Georgia, the Marines actually repulsed the initial landing. If one CG round had hit a few inches from where it did, they would have blown up the corvette commanding the landing.
The UK - EU need to come together, especially post Ukraine and trade needs to be at the front of this with a much more cooperative attitude on both sides
For most of the rest of this country, often unrepresented on pb's demographic, it really does matter.
I'm not taking a pop as such. Good luck to you. I'm just saying you are unintentionally out of touch with the nation on this.
The USSR remained stuck in the pre 1950s concept of social order and never went through this revolution.
Politicians are driven to a degree that we probably can't imagine, making sacrifices, spending huge amounts of time, energy and money, and in many cases simply outlasting those they are competing against (internally) before going on to fight against the other parties which requires them to do it all over again. They give up very rarely; it's not why they became politicians. Those who quit did so while candidates to be PPC.
The idea that in 2022 Britain should rule over a lump of rock 8000 miles away is ludicrous. The sort of nonsense colonialism which will be corrected with the inevitable march of progressive thinking.
However, I'm more vexed about our disgraceful shenanigans in the Chagos islands. Just appalling British behaviour.
Just my POV, thanks.
Fortunately the world has moved on.
Deal?
"If you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere. You don't understand what citizenship means."
She was taking to task the rootless managers of British businesses who behaved "as though they have more in common with international elites than with the people down the road".
Here's what's gone wrong and why it's adding to traffic chaos at the country's busiest port ⬇️
https://trib.al/xxDYqoe
But better for the Conservative party, and its chances of re-election?
Given the that Rishi was on the skids anyway, and bottled booting out Boris when he had the chance... If this is from No 10, it seems rather excessive.
Brexit has happened and unfortunately so many simply refuse to accept it and support a better relationship with the EU while remaining outside
Don't you see that Johnson surrounds himself with nincompoops in order to make his own chaos look reasonably ordered? When someone shines like Sunak, they are brutally scythed down.
1. Should the UK own The Falklands; and
2. Should a country not happy with that ownership invade it.
The first is a topic for discussion and the mad evolution of our various territories and possessions have lead to a situation whereby The Falkland Islanders want to remain British and we are all about self-determination of indigenous peoples, now, aren't we.
The answer to the second is very clearly no and hence we were justified in the campaign. Same with Op Granby but not so clearly with Op Telic, for example.
That's rubbish. As an example we did superbly on genomics - and the fact you choose to ignore that is telling.
One of the interesting things about the Covid crisis was seeing fools almost salivating over the daily death figures, proclaiming how bad we were. It's a weird form of exceptionalism: people who like to think that we're uniquely bad.
In Sunak’s case he strikes me as a man who ranks “family” (his own, at any rate) high up in his priorities and I suspect he finds these attacks on his wife hard to bear. We’ll see.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/apr/06/fungi-electrical-impulses-human-language-study
As far as Boris is concerned he has done well on covid and Ukraine, and for me he failed on Paterson, wallpapergate and partygate
Labour would have had the country held down in restrictions for far longer damaging our economy considerably, and apart from a windfall tax which I understand would be greatly reduced now Shell had had to accept a 5 billion loss in its divorce from Russia, I have not heard anything credible on the economy from labour
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_United_Kingdom_local_elections
The simple fact is that Labour should be doing so much better in these local by-elections when compared to the current opinion polls and where we are in the electoral cycle. All this local issues nonsense as excuses every week is just denial of the situation of when it comes to actual votes, SKS's Labour are doing very badly.
The tax affairs of very rich people are always going to be complicated and Mrs Sunak does not hold and has not sought any public office. It remains a completely absurd basis to undermine someone who has.
As I made clear at the time I thought Rishi's latest financial statement was disastrous. He is open to a range of criticisms for what he did and what he failed to do, especially the latter, and all of that is fair enough. But this wife stuff? Not for me.
He did not mention brexit once and said that all the other ports in the UK were operating at 92% capacity
We're regularly assured that HYUFD is invariably polite and doesn't engage in ad hominem.
If anything therefore it would be colonialism for the Argentines to take the Falklands not the reverse.
It is the Americans who mainly want to keep the Chagos Islands as a military base
The tax his wife has legally avoided comes from her very substantial holding in an IT company based in India which makes its profits there and trades there. It is part of an even larger holding that her family hold in that business. What right has the UK taxpayer to this money, exactly? It is not invested here, it is not made here and it is not paid here.
She pays tax on all of the money she makes in the UK which is again considerable. You could argue that as someone now resident here, if not domiciled, that we are entitled to a cut of all her earnings world wide but you can equally argue the reverse and she has complied with the rules. If her residence continues for 15 years she will have to pay that tax on that Indian income but at the moment it is taxed in India where it should be.
It's a Tory project which, economically damaging as it is in its own right, has also distracted them from even thinking about much that's constructive for a large part of the decade and a half they've been in power.
Unless Starmer Labour have a big lead in May they have zero chance of a majority at the next general election, albeit big gains by the LDs and Greens at the Tories expense could suggest a hung parliament