"Another Penny Mordaunt backer, former minister Damien Green, has reiterated that she is confident of reaching the threshold needed to further contest the leadership race.
Mordaunt has until 14:00 to garner the support of at least 100 MPs and build upon her current 25 backers to get her name on the ballot paper alongside Rishi Sunak.
Green says her team are confident she'll get the 100 names she needs, adding that her supporters are actually "way, way above" the current number of public endorsements.
"Penny is now looking to make sure she's above the 100 mark of nominations needed to go forward and then we can proceed to what will be a civilised discussion between Penny and Rishi to see who wins this election," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
He added: "Penny is the person best positioned to unify the party.""
Penny seems like a completely empty vessel. If even Boris is suggesting that 102 MPs isn't enough to take it to a members vote then she needs to take a step back from her situation and think about whether it would be worth it. She doesn't command a majority in the parliamentary party and therefore can't lead it. Whoever is blowing smoke up her arse suggesting that she can should give it a rest.
Yes, her interview with LK (hardly Robin Day or Paxman herself) wasn't that impressive.
I thought she was the best candidate, who can campaign well, but she is untested and there's Frost's criticism of her ministerial performance in the background - yes, he has axes to grind, but people don't normally make criticisms up, just embellish and exaggerate already-known weaknesses
Penny Mordaunt’s team are briefing that they have the numbers this morning. I asked why we can’t see 100 names but they say a lot of the endorsements are remaining private. We’ll find out shortly I guess.
10% negative is a drop on your foot proportion of people. One in ten. Look around you everywhere you go/walk/play and one in ten of them dislikes an Asian as PM because they are Asian. A cricket/football/rugby team = at least one member. Your office of 200 people? 20 of them.
Maybe I'm having a glass half empty Monday morning but I find that quite depressing.
Re: Braverman. Doesn’t the fact that only a week ago she had to resign as Home Secretary in disgrace for breaching the ministerial code (remember that?) rather mitigate against being let back in…? Especially when Sunak has made “restoring honesty and integrity in Govt” as part of his pitch…
"Another Penny Mordaunt backer, former minister Damien Green, has reiterated that she is confident of reaching the threshold needed to further contest the leadership race.
Mordaunt has until 14:00 to garner the support of at least 100 MPs and build upon her current 25 backers to get her name on the ballot paper alongside Rishi Sunak.
Green says her team are confident she'll get the 100 names she needs, adding that her supporters are actually "way, way above" the current number of public endorsements.
"Penny is now looking to make sure she's above the 100 mark of nominations needed to go forward and then we can proceed to what will be a civilised discussion between Penny and Rishi to see who wins this election," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
He added: "Penny is the person best positioned to unify the party.""
Penny seems like a completely empty vessel. If even Boris is suggesting that 102 MPs isn't enough to take it to a members vote then she needs to take a step back from her situation and think about whether it would be worth it. She doesn't command a majority in the parliamentary party and therefore can't lead it. Whoever is blowing smoke up her arse suggesting that she can should give it a rest.
Yes, her interview with LK (hardly Robin Day or Paxman herself) wasn't that impressive.
I thought she was the best candidate, who can campaign well, but she is untested and there's Frost's criticism of her ministerial performance in the background - yes, he has axes to grind, but people don't normally make criticisms up, just embellish and exaggerate already-known weaknesses
Totally agree. For a leftie I quite liked her but then came the tv debates and, well, I felt quite 'meh'.
Too many people close to her have been less-than-impressed for it not to stick. They say that she's not on her brief, is lazy, and surprisingly detached.
If she were a Thatcher-type she could have swept all before her months ago.
10% negative is a drop on your foot proportion of people. One in ten. Look around you everywhere you go/walk/play and one in ten of them dislikes an Asian as PM because they are Asian. A cricket/football/rugby team = at least one member. Your office of 200 people? 20 of them.
Maybe I'm having a glass half empty Monday morning but I find that quite depressing.
You need to compare it to other countries. This is probably the lowest figure you'd find anywhere. Sweden? 20% just voted for the Sweden Democrats.
10% negative is a drop on your foot proportion of people. One in ten. Look around you everywhere you go/walk/play and one in ten of them dislikes an Asian as PM because they are Asian. A cricket/football/rugby team = at least one member. Your office of 200 people? 20 of them.
Maybe I'm having a glass half empty Monday morning but I find that quite depressing.
I thought similarly - and given that these people were the ones willing to admit their racism to pollsters, the real figure is presumably higher.
Grim.
Yeah the 6% who are "not sure" if they are racists or not are clearly just like the 10% but have a degree of self awareness. So that's about one in six. Sounds about right. Of course it's great that 5/6 are not total racists, and that's probably a high number by international standards, but still a wearisomely high number of racists for people to be encountering on a daily basis.
Rishi is walking into a trap by avoiding a leadership vote. He will struggle with a reputation as a technocrat regardless. Dodging an election will not help that and will dog his premiership. He will be better if is Mordaunt gets her numbers and triggers a vote.
Braverman’s endorsement of Sunak surprised even some of her allies, with one speculating about whether she had been offered the chance to return as home secretary. “She wouldn’t have settled for much less,” said one.
Unpopular this may be but we NEED immigration. Brexit and covid drove away workers who helped our country function. Right now there's a labour shortage.
It goes deeper than that. Whatever some nasty white Brits might like to believe, this country has been an island nation with an outward facing attitude. For good or ill we have been a global nation, not an insular one. This country has benefitted phenomenally from the rich legacy of that outlook, right down to having our first Asian heritage Prime Minister.
I celebrate that fact. We all should.
The reason immigration is unpopular isn't the "furriners", it's the infrastructure.
Yes, you're right. Britain needs immigration, we're an ageing population and we need young people to wipe bottoms, and we need people to do the jobs us Brits are either too lazy or feckless or simply think it's beneath us to do.
The problem is we also need the infrastructure support that immigration. We need new houses built. New schools. New hospitals. People see expanding class sizes, inability to get a GP's appointment for weeks, rents going up and up and semi-correctly diagnose immigration as the problem. The problem isn't the immigration, it's the lack of infrastructure to keep up with immigration.
Can’t speak for the rest of it, but immigration isn’t the cause of increasing class sizes. Funding not keeping pace with costs is the cause.
Far too many people in the country is the problem.
Large parts of the country are empty. There is plenty of room.
Especially in Malcolm's part of the world! But even in England too.
Restricting house-building and infrastructure development in general is the problem. Open immigration should be the policy, but combined with open construction, unfortunately the potentially sane pro-migration parties like the Lib Dems tend to whore themselves out to attract NIMBY voters.
What I love is how you bundle the family into the car and go on holiday to Cumbria, rather than for a tour of the new housing estates in say Kent or bedfordshire.
Yeah, and?
I go to Penrith. In case you haven't noticed it, there are homes and businesses and people living in Penrith, and I'd have absolutely no issue with that doubling or tripling or more in size.
Its entirely possible to have wooded areas or businesses like Center Parcs, and homes and businesses or even industry, side-by-side. Especially if you let a town sprawl over more of the countryside, then you can contain more wooded etc areas within it.
Says a person who doesn’t live in Penrith
Young people in Penrith probably do want somewhere to be able to live.
Old NIMBYs in Penrith are no better than NIMBYs anywhere else.
The thing is you highlight a big issue that is being created within the larger combined authorities where councilors happily sign off 1000+ homes in Penrith because it doesn’t impact their votes on Carlisle or Whitehaven.
In fact it may even help them by redirecting all the required building elsewhere so Carlisle NIMBY residents see no new homes at all
"Half of all primary schools in England are trying to feed children in poverty who are ineligible for free school meals because their parents’ income does not meet the threshold. But there are 800,000 of them. It can be hard sometimes to grasp the scale of the problem through bare statistics, but vivid and haunting details can flesh them out. Children are eating school rubbers to line their stomachs and dull the ache and nausea of hunger. Others are bringing in empty lunchboxes then pretending to dine on their phantom food away from classmates, too ashamed to reveal that they have nothing to eat."
So, basically, if you are on any form of benefit, including in work benefits, you qualify. As these people clearly have at least 1 child they will qualify for those unless their income is quite considerable (the taper will not affect eligibility to FSM).
What I would accept is that there are dysfunctional families who do not prioritise feeding their kids over other wants but 800k? Nah.
On UC the limit is just £7,400 for some reason, when it was £16k on other benefits that are now unavailable to apply for.
£7,400 is not a lot of money.
I agree with you that some will be due to dysfunctional families, but £7,400 is an absurdly low figure for a safety net.
I didn't spot that. I agree that is absurdly low and needs changing. But surely families with children will either get CTC or WTC where the cap seems to be £16,190?
Football's looking like two bad results in a row for me (one bet still to come). Hmm. First season trying this (I did dabble earlier but not in quite the same way). Think I might be neglecting recent form too much in favour of considering overall results, might be leading me astray.
Football is tricky. My favourite gambling approach used to be my brother in laws. He always bet on Southampton winning 3-2. A tenner on this, every home game. He was a season ticket holder. Rarely came up, but when it did often picked up 200 to 250 quid. Then went to the casino and usually blew the lot.
Lost money every time, but boy, when it came up, that was some night!
Another approach is bet on a 0-0 draw. At least you got something for 2 hours of a boring match
10% negative is a drop on your foot proportion of people. One in ten. Look around you everywhere you go/walk/play and one in ten of them dislikes an Asian as PM because they are Asian. A cricket/football/rugby team = at least one member. Your office of 200 people? 20 of them.
Maybe I'm having a glass half empty Monday morning but I find that quite depressing.
You need to compare it to other countries. This is probably the lowest figure you'd find anywhere. Sweden? 20% just voted for the Sweden Democrats.
I couldn't give a fuck about other countries. I don't live in Sweden.
"Half of all primary schools in England are trying to feed children in poverty who are ineligible for free school meals because their parents’ income does not meet the threshold. But there are 800,000 of them. It can be hard sometimes to grasp the scale of the problem through bare statistics, but vivid and haunting details can flesh them out. Children are eating school rubbers to line their stomachs and dull the ache and nausea of hunger. Others are bringing in empty lunchboxes then pretending to dine on their phantom food away from classmates, too ashamed to reveal that they have nothing to eat."
So, basically, if you are on any form of benefit, including in work benefits, you qualify. As these people clearly have at least 1 child they will qualify for those unless their income is quite considerable (the taper will not affect eligibility to FSM).
What I would accept is that there are dysfunctional families who do not prioritise feeding their kids over other wants but 800k? Nah.
The key there is "may" qualify.. If you are in work on UC you need to be on less than £7.4k pa.
Unpopular this may be but we NEED immigration. Brexit and covid drove away workers who helped our country function. Right now there's a labour shortage.
It goes deeper than that. Whatever some nasty white Brits might like to believe, this country has been an island nation with an outward facing attitude. For good or ill we have been a global nation, not an insular one. This country has benefitted phenomenally from the rich legacy of that outlook, right down to having our first Asian heritage Prime Minister.
I celebrate that fact. We all should.
The reason immigration is unpopular isn't the "furriners", it's the infrastructure.
Yes, you're right. Britain needs immigration, we're an ageing population and we need young people to wipe bottoms, and we need people to do the jobs us Brits are either too lazy or feckless or simply think it's beneath us to do.
The problem is we also need the infrastructure support that immigration. We need new houses built. New schools. New hospitals. People see expanding class sizes, inability to get a GP's appointment for weeks, rents going up and up and semi-correctly diagnose immigration as the problem. The problem isn't the immigration, it's the lack of infrastructure to keep up with immigration.
Can’t speak for the rest of it, but immigration isn’t the cause of increasing class sizes. Funding not keeping pace with costs is the cause.
Far too many people in the country is the problem.
Large parts of the country are empty. There is plenty of room.
Especially in Malcolm's part of the world! But even in England too.
Restricting house-building and infrastructure development in general is the problem. Open immigration should be the policy, but combined with open construction, unfortunately the potentially sane pro-migration parties like the Lib Dems tend to whore themselves out to attract NIMBY voters.
What I love is how you bundle the family into the car and go on holiday to Cumbria, rather than for a tour of the new housing estates in say Kent or bedfordshire.
Yeah, and?
I go to Penrith. In case you haven't noticed it, there are homes and businesses and people living in Penrith, and I'd have absolutely no issue with that doubling or tripling or more in size.
Its entirely possible to have wooded areas or businesses like Center Parcs, and homes and businesses or even industry, side-by-side. Especially if you let a town sprawl over more of the countryside, then you can contain more wooded etc areas within it.
Says a person who doesn’t live in Penrith
Young people in Penrith probably do want somewhere to be able to live.
Old NIMBYs in Penrith are no better than NIMBYs anywhere else.
The thing is you highlight a big issue that is being created within the larger combined authorities where councilors happily sign off 1000+ homes in Penrith because it doesn’t impact their votes on Carlisle or Whitehaven.
In fact it may even help them by redirecting all the required building elsewhere so Carlisle NIMBY residents see no new homes at all
The proposal was to double or triple the size of Penrith. The town centre can't possibly cope with higher numbers coming in so we're talking about out of town shopping and eating places needing to be built.
The only practical way to do that is build Penrith North on the east side of the M6. Or Penrith west to the west of the M6. Neither would be an expansion of Penrith itself which topographically has hills and a flood plain restricting it.
"Another Penny Mordaunt backer, former minister Damien Green, has reiterated that she is confident of reaching the threshold needed to further contest the leadership race.
Mordaunt has until 14:00 to garner the support of at least 100 MPs and build upon her current 25 backers to get her name on the ballot paper alongside Rishi Sunak.
Green says her team are confident she'll get the 100 names she needs, adding that her supporters are actually "way, way above" the current number of public endorsements.
"Penny is now looking to make sure she's above the 100 mark of nominations needed to go forward and then we can proceed to what will be a civilised discussion between Penny and Rishi to see who wins this election," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
He added: "Penny is the person best positioned to unify the party.""
Penny seems like a completely empty vessel. If even Boris is suggesting that 102 MPs isn't enough to take it to a members vote then she needs to take a step back from her situation and think about whether it would be worth it. She doesn't command a majority in the parliamentary party and therefore can't lead it. Whoever is blowing smoke up her arse suggesting that she can should give it a rest.
I don't think anyone believes Boris actually had 102? Penny isn't mad or anything and fewer MPs hold grudges against her than against Sunak. If the members vote for her, there's no reason why MPs shouldn't get behind her like they would with any normal leader.
If you're an ambitious politician, and you can get the nominations, and you have a decent chance with the members, obviously you give it a go. Britain can survive another week without a Prime Minister, and watching the Tory membership try to do an online vote will be funny.
Unpopular this may be but we NEED immigration. Brexit and covid drove away workers who helped our country function. Right now there's a labour shortage.
It goes deeper than that. Whatever some nasty white Brits might like to believe, this country has been an island nation with an outward facing attitude. For good or ill we have been a global nation, not an insular one. This country has benefitted phenomenally from the rich legacy of that outlook, right down to having our first Asian heritage Prime Minister.
I celebrate that fact. We all should.
The reason immigration is unpopular isn't the "furriners", it's the infrastructure.
Yes, you're right. Britain needs immigration, we're an ageing population and we need young people to wipe bottoms, and we need people to do the jobs us Brits are either too lazy or feckless or simply think it's beneath us to do.
The problem is we also need the infrastructure support that immigration. We need new houses built. New schools. New hospitals. People see expanding class sizes, inability to get a GP's appointment for weeks, rents going up and up and semi-correctly diagnose immigration as the problem. The problem isn't the immigration, it's the lack of infrastructure to keep up with immigration.
Can’t speak for the rest of it, but immigration isn’t the cause of increasing class sizes. Funding not keeping pace with costs is the cause.
Far too many people in the country is the problem.
Large parts of the country are empty. There is plenty of room.
Especially in Malcolm's part of the world! But even in England too.
Restricting house-building and infrastructure development in general is the problem. Open immigration should be the policy, but combined with open construction, unfortunately the potentially sane pro-migration parties like the Lib Dems tend to whore themselves out to attract NIMBY voters.
What I love is how you bundle the family into the car and go on holiday to Cumbria, rather than for a tour of the new housing estates in say Kent or bedfordshire.
Yeah, and?
I go to Penrith. In case you haven't noticed it, there are homes and businesses and people living in Penrith, and I'd have absolutely no issue with that doubling or tripling or more in size.
Its entirely possible to have wooded areas or businesses like Center Parcs, and homes and businesses or even industry, side-by-side. Especially if you let a town sprawl over more of the countryside, then you can contain more wooded etc areas within it.
Says a person who doesn’t live in Penrith
Young people in Penrith probably do want somewhere to be able to live.
Old NIMBYs in Penrith are no better than NIMBYs anywhere else.
The thing is you highlight a big issue that is being created within the larger combined authorities where councilors happily sign off 1000+ homes in Penrith because it doesn’t impact their votes on Carlisle or Whitehaven.
In fact it may even help them by redirecting all the required building elsewhere so Carlisle NIMBY residents see no new homes at all
The proposal was to double or triple the size of Penrith. The town centre can't possibly cope with higher numbers coming in so we're talking about out of town shopping and eating places needing to be built.
The only practical way to do that is build Penrith North on the east side of the M6. Or Penrith west to the west of the M6. Neither would be an expansion of Penrith itself which topographically has hills and a flood plain restricting it.
In his exhortations to build, build, build @BartholomewRoberts always forgets the externalities.
Rishi is walking into a trap by avoiding a leadership vote. He will struggle with a reputation as a technocrat regardless. Dodging an election will not help that and will dog his premiership. He will be better if is Mordaunt gets her numbers and triggers a vote.
Balls. Complaining that there is a democratic deficit if the ghastly Con membership is cheated of a vote, is like claiming a democratic deficit if the CEO of Geest unilaterally decides on the next president of Guatemala without consulting the board of directors.
Unpopular this may be but we NEED immigration. Brexit and covid drove away workers who helped our country function. Right now there's a labour shortage.
It goes deeper than that. Whatever some nasty white Brits might like to believe, this country has been an island nation with an outward facing attitude. For good or ill we have been a global nation, not an insular one. This country has benefitted phenomenally from the rich legacy of that outlook, right down to having our first Asian heritage Prime Minister.
I celebrate that fact. We all should.
The reason immigration is unpopular isn't the "furriners", it's the infrastructure.
Yes, you're right. Britain needs immigration, we're an ageing population and we need young people to wipe bottoms, and we need people to do the jobs us Brits are either too lazy or feckless or simply think it's beneath us to do.
The problem is we also need the infrastructure support that immigration. We need new houses built. New schools. New hospitals. People see expanding class sizes, inability to get a GP's appointment for weeks, rents going up and up and semi-correctly diagnose immigration as the problem. The problem isn't the immigration, it's the lack of infrastructure to keep up with immigration.
Can’t speak for the rest of it, but immigration isn’t the cause of increasing class sizes. Funding not keeping pace with costs is the cause.
Far too many people in the country is the problem.
Large parts of the country are empty. There is plenty of room.
Especially in Malcolm's part of the world! But even in England too.
Restricting house-building and infrastructure development in general is the problem. Open immigration should be the policy, but combined with open construction, unfortunately the potentially sane pro-migration parties like the Lib Dems tend to whore themselves out to attract NIMBY voters.
What I love is how you bundle the family into the car and go on holiday to Cumbria, rather than for a tour of the new housing estates in say Kent or bedfordshire.
Yeah, and?
I go to Penrith. In case you haven't noticed it, there are homes and businesses and people living in Penrith, and I'd have absolutely no issue with that doubling or tripling or more in size.
Its entirely possible to have wooded areas or businesses like Center Parcs, and homes and businesses or even industry, side-by-side. Especially if you let a town sprawl over more of the countryside, then you can contain more wooded etc areas within it.
Says a person who doesn’t live in Penrith
Young people in Penrith probably do want somewhere to be able to live.
Old NIMBYs in Penrith are no better than NIMBYs anywhere else.
The thing is you highlight a big issue that is being created within the larger combined authorities where councilors happily sign off 1000+ homes in Penrith because it doesn’t impact their votes on Carlisle or Whitehaven.
In fact it may even help them by redirecting all the required building elsewhere so Carlisle NIMBY residents see no new homes at all
The proposal was to double or triple the size of Penrith. The town centre can't possibly cope with higher numbers coming in so we're talking about out of town shopping and eating places needing to be built.
The only practical way to do that is build Penrith North on the east side of the M6. Or Penrith west to the west of the M6. Neither would be an expansion of Penrith itself which topographically has hills and a flood plain restricting it.
Sounds great.
People have cars. Absolutely no reason not to have out of town shopping. Out of town shopping means there's less traffic heading into town to fill your boot, so what's the problem with that?
Its funny how the NIMBY apologists love to bemoan people heading into town shopping, and love to bemoan people heading out of town shopping. Its like Sir Humphrey suggesting hospitals would be great, if they only didn't have any of those pesky patients to deal with.
"Half of all primary schools in England are trying to feed children in poverty who are ineligible for free school meals because their parents’ income does not meet the threshold. But there are 800,000 of them. It can be hard sometimes to grasp the scale of the problem through bare statistics, but vivid and haunting details can flesh them out. Children are eating school rubbers to line their stomachs and dull the ache and nausea of hunger. Others are bringing in empty lunchboxes then pretending to dine on their phantom food away from classmates, too ashamed to reveal that they have nothing to eat."
So, basically, if you are on any form of benefit, including in work benefits, you qualify. As these people clearly have at least 1 child they will qualify for those unless their income is quite considerable (the taper will not affect eligibility to FSM).
What I would accept is that there are dysfunctional families who do not prioritise feeding their kids over other wants but 800k? Nah.
The key there is "may" qualify.. If you are in work on UC you need to be on less than £7.4k pa.
Edit. Barty in there first.
Yes, I accept that point but if you earn more than £7.4k with a dependent child you will either get WTC or CTC which also qualify you unless your income is more than £16,190. Now, I would accept that is still not a lot of money and I wouldn't want to live on it but it shouldn't necessitate an empty lunch box for your child.
Ps. this conversation rather shows that the "simplification" of our benefit system through UC has not been an unqualified success.
Rishi is walking into a trap by avoiding a leadership vote. He will struggle with a reputation as a technocrat regardless. Dodging an election will not help that and will dog his premiership. He will be better if is Mordaunt gets her numbers and triggers a vote.
How is Rishi avoiding a leadership vote is if his mps overwhelming vote for him
I have just noticed Patel is now endorsing Rishi, yet another Boris supporter moving to him
Sky reporting from the City saying the bond markets have reacted favourably and are now at pre mini budget rates
Rishi is walking into a trap by avoiding a leadership vote. He will struggle with a reputation as a technocrat regardless. Dodging an election will not help that and will dog his premiership. He will be better if is Mordaunt gets her numbers and triggers a vote.
Balls. Complaining that there is a democratic deficit if the ghastly Con membership is cheated of a vote, is like claiming a democratic deficit if the CEO of Geest unilaterally decides on the next president of Guatemala without consulting the board of directors.
Rishis technocratic style leaves him vulnerable to challenge on remoteness. If he runs away from his own members that will not help.
Rishi is walking into a trap by avoiding a leadership vote. He will struggle with a reputation as a technocrat regardless. Dodging an election will not help that and will dog his premiership. He will be better if is Mordaunt gets her numbers and triggers a vote.
How is Rishi avoiding a leadership vote is if his mps overwhelming vote for him
I have just noticed Patel is now endorsing Rishi, yet another Boris supporter moving to him
Sky reporting from the City saying the bond markets have reacted favourably and are now at pre mini budget rates
"Half of all primary schools in England are trying to feed children in poverty who are ineligible for free school meals because their parents’ income does not meet the threshold. But there are 800,000 of them. It can be hard sometimes to grasp the scale of the problem through bare statistics, but vivid and haunting details can flesh them out. Children are eating school rubbers to line their stomachs and dull the ache and nausea of hunger. Others are bringing in empty lunchboxes then pretending to dine on their phantom food away from classmates, too ashamed to reveal that they have nothing to eat."
So, basically, if you are on any form of benefit, including in work benefits, you qualify. As these people clearly have at least 1 child they will qualify for those unless their income is quite considerable (the taper will not affect eligibility to FSM).
What I would accept is that there are dysfunctional families who do not prioritise feeding their kids over other wants but 800k? Nah.
The key there is "may" qualify.. If you are in work on UC you need to be on less than £7.4k pa.
Edit. Barty in there first.
Yes, I accept that point but if you earn more than £7.4k with a dependent child you will either get WTC or CTC which also qualify you unless your income is more than £16,190. Now, I would accept that is still not a lot of money and I wouldn't want to live on it but it shouldn't necessitate an empty lunch box for your child.
Aren't those 'grandfathered' benefits that aren't available anymore?
As far as I was aware any new applicants (which increasingly inevitably will be anyone with young children) get UC and not WTC or CTC anymore.
Rishi is walking into a trap by avoiding a leadership vote. He will struggle with a reputation as a technocrat regardless. Dodging an election will not help that and will dog his premiership. He will be better if is Mordaunt gets her numbers and triggers a vote.
William Hague's change to the leadership election process has been a failure. It's better if the leader is determined by MPs, and more in keeping with parliamentary democracy.
Rishi is walking into a trap by avoiding a leadership vote. He will struggle with a reputation as a technocrat regardless. Dodging an election will not help that and will dog his premiership. He will be better if is Mordaunt gets her numbers and triggers a vote.
I think that point would be stronger if we hasn't had nearly the same vote with the exact electorate 8 odd weeks ago which got it completely wrong.
"Half of all primary schools in England are trying to feed children in poverty who are ineligible for free school meals because their parents’ income does not meet the threshold. But there are 800,000 of them. It can be hard sometimes to grasp the scale of the problem through bare statistics, but vivid and haunting details can flesh them out. Children are eating school rubbers to line their stomachs and dull the ache and nausea of hunger. Others are bringing in empty lunchboxes then pretending to dine on their phantom food away from classmates, too ashamed to reveal that they have nothing to eat."
So, basically, if you are on any form of benefit, including in work benefits, you qualify. As these people clearly have at least 1 child they will qualify for those unless their income is quite considerable (the taper will not affect eligibility to FSM).
What I would accept is that there are dysfunctional families who do not prioritise feeding their kids over other wants but 800k? Nah.
On UC the limit is just £7,400 for some reason, when it was £16k on other benefits that are now unavailable to apply for.
£7,400 is not a lot of money.
I agree with you that some will be due to dysfunctional families, but £7,400 is an absurdly low figure for a safety net.
I didn't spot that. I agree that is absurdly low and needs changing. But surely families with children will either get CTC or WTC where the cap seems to be £16,190?
You can't make new claims for tax credits. It's UC only now.
Edit. Barty is much quicker to the loose ball today.
Rishi is walking into a trap by avoiding a leadership vote. He will struggle with a reputation as a technocrat regardless. Dodging an election will not help that and will dog his premiership. He will be better if is Mordaunt gets her numbers and triggers a vote.
Balls. Complaining that there is a democratic deficit if the ghastly Con membership is cheated of a vote, is like claiming a democratic deficit if the CEO of Geest unilaterally decides on the next president of Guatemala without consulting the board of directors.
Sunak is literally the son-in-law of one of the world's wealthiest CEOs.
If only two thirds of voters would not even consider voting Tory after all that's gone on I think most of the other third probably will and that's the ceiling Rishi needs to aim for at the next GE. Still not enough to prevent a Labour majority but should keep them above 200 seats.
"Half of all primary schools in England are trying to feed children in poverty who are ineligible for free school meals because their parents’ income does not meet the threshold. But there are 800,000 of them. It can be hard sometimes to grasp the scale of the problem through bare statistics, but vivid and haunting details can flesh them out. Children are eating school rubbers to line their stomachs and dull the ache and nausea of hunger. Others are bringing in empty lunchboxes then pretending to dine on their phantom food away from classmates, too ashamed to reveal that they have nothing to eat."
So, basically, if you are on any form of benefit, including in work benefits, you qualify. As these people clearly have at least 1 child they will qualify for those unless their income is quite considerable (the taper will not affect eligibility to FSM).
What I would accept is that there are dysfunctional families who do not prioritise feeding their kids over other wants but 800k? Nah.
On UC the limit is just £7,400 for some reason, when it was £16k on other benefits that are now unavailable to apply for.
£7,400 is not a lot of money.
I agree with you that some will be due to dysfunctional families, but £7,400 is an absurdly low figure for a safety net.
Unpopular this may be but we NEED immigration. Brexit and covid drove away workers who helped our country function. Right now there's a labour shortage.
It goes deeper than that. Whatever some nasty white Brits might like to believe, this country has been an island nation with an outward facing attitude. For good or ill we have been a global nation, not an insular one. This country has benefitted phenomenally from the rich legacy of that outlook, right down to having our first Asian heritage Prime Minister.
I celebrate that fact. We all should.
The reason immigration is unpopular isn't the "furriners", it's the infrastructure.
Yes, you're right. Britain needs immigration, we're an ageing population and we need young people to wipe bottoms, and we need people to do the jobs us Brits are either too lazy or feckless or simply think it's beneath us to do.
The problem is we also need the infrastructure support that immigration. We need new houses built. New schools. New hospitals. People see expanding class sizes, inability to get a GP's appointment for weeks, rents going up and up and semi-correctly diagnose immigration as the problem. The problem isn't the immigration, it's the lack of infrastructure to keep up with immigration.
Can’t speak for the rest of it, but immigration isn’t the cause of increasing class sizes. Funding not keeping pace with costs is the cause.
Far too many people in the country is the problem.
Large parts of the country are empty. There is plenty of room.
Especially in Malcolm's part of the world! But even in England too.
Restricting house-building and infrastructure development in general is the problem. Open immigration should be the policy, but combined with open construction, unfortunately the potentially sane pro-migration parties like the Lib Dems tend to whore themselves out to attract NIMBY voters.
What I love is how you bundle the family into the car and go on holiday to Cumbria, rather than for a tour of the new housing estates in say Kent or bedfordshire.
Yeah, and?
I go to Penrith. In case you haven't noticed it, there are homes and businesses and people living in Penrith, and I'd have absolutely no issue with that doubling or tripling or more in size.
Its entirely possible to have wooded areas or businesses like Center Parcs, and homes and businesses or even industry, side-by-side. Especially if you let a town sprawl over more of the countryside, then you can contain more wooded etc areas within it.
Says a person who doesn’t live in Penrith
Young people in Penrith probably do want somewhere to be able to live.
Old NIMBYs in Penrith are no better than NIMBYs anywhere else.
The thing is you highlight a big issue that is being created within the larger combined authorities where councilors happily sign off 1000+ homes in Penrith because it doesn’t impact their votes on Carlisle or Whitehaven.
In fact it may even help them by redirecting all the required building elsewhere so Carlisle NIMBY residents see no new homes at all
The proposal was to double or triple the size of Penrith. The town centre can't possibly cope with higher numbers coming in so we're talking about out of town shopping and eating places needing to be built.
The only practical way to do that is build Penrith North on the east side of the M6. Or Penrith west to the west of the M6. Neither would be an expansion of Penrith itself which topographically has hills and a flood plain restricting it.
Sounds great.
People have cars. Absolutely no reason not to have out of town shopping. Out of town shopping means there's less traffic heading into town to fill your boot, so what's the problem with that?
Its funny how the NIMBY apologists love to bemoan people heading into town shopping, and love to bemoan people heading out of town shopping. Its like Sir Humphrey suggesting hospitals would be great, if they only didn't have any of those pesky patients to deal with.
You clearly don't know Penrith - it isn't Birchwood. You *cannot* do anything which encourages people to drive into Penrith centre. So you are building new communities who physically cannot access the place you are building them next to.
So why not just build a new town where everyone can access everything? NIMBY objectors rightly point to the chaos on their roads which cannot be expanded and the state of schools which councils can't expand and the state of hospitals which are in the wrong place for all the new people who can't get down the roads to get there.
"Half of all primary schools in England are trying to feed children in poverty who are ineligible for free school meals because their parents’ income does not meet the threshold. But there are 800,000 of them. It can be hard sometimes to grasp the scale of the problem through bare statistics, but vivid and haunting details can flesh them out. Children are eating school rubbers to line their stomachs and dull the ache and nausea of hunger. Others are bringing in empty lunchboxes then pretending to dine on their phantom food away from classmates, too ashamed to reveal that they have nothing to eat."
So, basically, if you are on any form of benefit, including in work benefits, you qualify. As these people clearly have at least 1 child they will qualify for those unless their income is quite considerable (the taper will not affect eligibility to FSM).
What I would accept is that there are dysfunctional families who do not prioritise feeding their kids over other wants but 800k? Nah.
The key there is "may" qualify.. If you are in work on UC you need to be on less than £7.4k pa.
Edit. Barty in there first.
Yes, I accept that point but if you earn more than £7.4k with a dependent child you will either get WTC or CTC which also qualify you unless your income is more than £16,190. Now, I would accept that is still not a lot of money and I wouldn't want to live on it but it shouldn't necessitate an empty lunch box for your child.
Ps. this conversation rather shows that the "simplification" of our benefit system through UC has not been an unqualified success.
I find it hard to believe that many people would allow their kids to go hungry if they had any option. There will be some, but it won't be the majority.
"Half of all primary schools in England are trying to feed children in poverty who are ineligible for free school meals because their parents’ income does not meet the threshold. But there are 800,000 of them. It can be hard sometimes to grasp the scale of the problem through bare statistics, but vivid and haunting details can flesh them out. Children are eating school rubbers to line their stomachs and dull the ache and nausea of hunger. Others are bringing in empty lunchboxes then pretending to dine on their phantom food away from classmates, too ashamed to reveal that they have nothing to eat."
So, basically, if you are on any form of benefit, including in work benefits, you qualify. As these people clearly have at least 1 child they will qualify for those unless their income is quite considerable (the taper will not affect eligibility to FSM).
What I would accept is that there are dysfunctional families who do not prioritise feeding their kids over other wants but 800k? Nah.
The key there is "may" qualify.. If you are in work on UC you need to be on less than £7.4k pa.
Edit. Barty in there first.
Yes, I accept that point but if you earn more than £7.4k with a dependent child you will either get WTC or CTC which also qualify you unless your income is more than £16,190. Now, I would accept that is still not a lot of money and I wouldn't want to live on it but it shouldn't necessitate an empty lunch box for your child.
Aren't those 'grandfathered' benefits that aren't available anymore?
As far as I was aware any new applicants (which increasingly inevitably will be anyone with young children) get UC and not WTC or CTC anymore.
It's also a huge disincentive to take on more hours if you're a single parent working part-time.
Edit: Now Ben is ahead of me. I give up. Off to Toon to enjoy half-term!
Rishi is walking into a trap by avoiding a leadership vote. He will struggle with a reputation as a technocrat regardless. Dodging an election will not help that and will dog his premiership. He will be better if is Mordaunt gets her numbers and triggers a vote.
Balls. Complaining that there is a democratic deficit if the ghastly Con membership is cheated of a vote, is like claiming a democratic deficit if the CEO of Geest unilaterally decides on the next president of Guatemala without consulting the board of directors.
Rishis technocratic style leaves him vulnerable to challenge on remoteness. If he runs away from his own members that will not help.
It will with me. Though I would rather he crucified their pets, napalmed their houses, sowed their herbaceous borders with salt and poisoned their wells. With a promise of more to come in the budget.
If Penny Mordaunt made it through to the members’ round tomorrow she’d win. No doubt about it. But that’s not what’s been decided. Prepare for mass defection of any remaining Tory members. Good news for @WilliamClouston and @TiceRichard
The Nick Robinson interview with Robert Chope showed that Boris is prepared to be a wrecking ball. The Tories '....rejection of Boris Johnson was such an act of betrayal that there would now have to be an election because Sunak had no legitimate support' says Chope.
That he is a piece of work goes without saying. The Party is ungovernable while Johnson's malign stink is lingering in the background
Its telling they see rejection of their chosen one as betrayal. It's a deeply weird personal fixation.
I don't think anyone believes Boris actually had 102? Penny isn't mad or anything and fewer MPs hold grudges against her than against Sunak. If the members vote for her, there's no reason why MPs shouldn't get behind her like they would with any normal leader.
If you're an ambitious politician, and you can get the nominations, and you have a decent chance with the members, obviously you give it a go. Britain can survive another week without a Prime Minister, and watching the Tory membership try to do an online vote will be funny.
Presumably also you have a better negotiating position with Sunak for a good cabinet position if you demonstrably hit the 100 mark? If you can't even hit that he doesn't have to care much about you at all. You could for instance wait for the results of the indicative vote and then when it comes out 250-100 against make a more plausible "good of the party" concession speech than Boris's.
He'll just do what he thinks is right for the country and ignore the nutters. He can do nothing else and there is no advantage in trying to do otherwise. We should see a bounce in Tory poll ratings now. My guess is they will get back to within 20 points of Labour immediately. After that he could, given a fair wind, carry the Tories to an honourable defeat at the next GE, retaining something like 200/250 Parliamentary seats.
Will he get a fair wind? Well we know the economic storms that are coming but he should be able to ride them on the not unreasonable basis that they were not of his making and most other countries are suffering them too. The home-brewed political storms are a different matter though.
Boris's curmudgeonly withdrawal letter and the angry noises from The Defeated suggest that civil strife within The Party will continue. In that case I downgrade my prediction to less than 100 seats, and an Extinction Event far from possible. If the dissidents manage to contrive a 2023 GE, then the EE becomes more likely than not.
I didn't think the eliminaton of the Conservative Party was possible in my lifetime, but the fact it can even be sensibly discussed now is an indication of the pass things have come to.
Sunak’s disastrous budget earlier this year helped to create the conditions for where we are now. But I think you’re right that he is by far the Tories’ best hope. That said, if we end up with any of Patel, Braverman or Rees Mogg in the Cabinet, we’ll know Sunak is not putting the country first.
Sunak has to unite all wings of the party if he is going to be able to govern. Therefore, he will absolutely have to bring some in from the cold from that wing of the party - and Braverman is a strong likelihood.
No, I'd rather he didn't either but it's the sensible thing to do. It's politics. It does not mean he's got "no integrity" or is "not putting the country first". It means he is trying to be magnanimous and unite all wings of the parliamentary party to form a stable government.
You're simply trying to set up an attack line for what you know is probably inevitable and, if he doesn’t do what he asks, the party risks splitting so there's an unstable government and you can then call for an immediate GE and Labour due to the chaos. Either way, you've got a great spin angle.
I can read you like a book.
This is an internet message board, not Parliament. What any of us anonymous posters says on here is not of the slightest consequence to the national discourse. We’re all just people of no import who happen to have opinions. My opinion is you can’t claim to have integrity and be focused on the national interest and then put people like Braverman, Patel and Rees Mogg in your Cabinet. You disagree. That’s all that’s happening here. The world turns.
Bollocks. I will continue to call you out for those who do read the comments here who do have influence in the national discourse.
You're a transparent spinner. It's a shame because you'd be much more interesting if you engaged objectively with the subject, rather than seagulling in here two or three times a day, dropping your spin, and then leaving again.
Like you used to do before you went off the rails.
Off Topic
I suspect we all have opinions on fellow posters, most of which are best written and deleted without being sent. Advice I will now ignore.
My opinion of you is you are an enthusiastic Conservative, which is fine. However you do get very angry when anyone else expresses an opinion contrary to your own. It might be a coincidence but some of my "off topics" arrived after I disagreed with your posts. I have subsequently avoided you like the plague, as there is no point getting involved in confrontation on a board like this.
My opinion of Southham is he remains a fantastic poster (not least because I agree with almost everything he writes). Eradication of centrist posters might cheer you immensely. It would disappoint some of the rest of us.
Yes Casino_Royale can appear pleasant a lot of the time and then goes apeshit if someone takes a contrary view, with some really nasty personal invective. Especially from anyone to the left of him, even if they are in fact rather moderate. It's really quite odd.
However, when I was on the receiving end of something similar the other morning I reflected further and realised that it was because he stood to lose a stack of money and was very twitchy. Which I do understand. The last time I rolled the dice big time on spreads was nerve-wracking. I won big betting against the markets but it did make me irascible. That's my excuse for his intemperate morning rant.
Yes, I can get particularly stressed at election time and sometimes attack political opponents (it's usually about fear of the result, not the money, by the way) but that wasn't what Saturday morning was about.
Rishi is walking into a trap by avoiding a leadership vote. He will struggle with a reputation as a technocrat regardless. Dodging an election will not help that and will dog his premiership. He will be better if is Mordaunt gets her numbers and triggers a vote.
How is Rishi avoiding a leadership vote is if his mps overwhelming vote for him
I have just noticed Patel is now endorsing Rishi, yet another Boris supporter moving to him
Sky reporting from the City saying the bond markets have reacted favourably and are now at pre mini budget rates
I’m pretty convinced Mordaunt is keeping in the race to avoid any late transfers to a spoiler candidate and to strengthen her position for a top cabinet spot.
Around 35 disgruntled Tories are needed to wipe out the government's majority. So far there's Dorries and Chope.
Yes. I was just mulling over whether there are any more than that. I struggle to think of one, let alone enough to get past 30. JRM perhaps or is he just an opportunistic chancer rather than an ideological headcase?
In these difficult times for our country we must unite by putting public service first and work together. We care about our country and with the enormous challenges upon us we must put political differences aside to give @RishiSunak the best chance of succeeding.
I mean there's something quite funny about her quote - "put our political differences aside". Where would that leave British politics if everyone did that.
Standard political guff about unity etc. Unity is not the true goal, and doesn't need to be.
He'll just do what he thinks is right for the country and ignore the nutters. He can do nothing else and there is no advantage in trying to do otherwise. We should see a bounce in Tory poll ratings now. My guess is they will get back to within 20 points of Labour immediately. After that he could, given a fair wind, carry the Tories to an honourable defeat at the next GE, retaining something like 200/250 Parliamentary seats.
Will he get a fair wind? Well we know the economic storms that are coming but he should be able to ride them on the not unreasonable basis that they were not of his making and most other countries are suffering them too. The home-brewed political storms are a different matter though.
Boris's curmudgeonly withdrawal letter and the angry noises from The Defeated suggest that civil strife within The Party will continue. In that case I downgrade my prediction to less than 100 seats, and an Extinction Event far from possible. If the dissidents manage to contrive a 2023 GE, then the EE becomes more likely than not.
I didn't think the eliminaton of the Conservative Party was possible in my lifetime, but the fact it can even be sensibly discussed now is an indication of the pass things have come to.
Sunak’s disastrous budget earlier this year helped to create the conditions for where we are now. But I think you’re right that he is by far the Tories’ best hope. That said, if we end up with any of Patel, Braverman or Rees Mogg in the Cabinet, we’ll know Sunak is not putting the country first.
Sunak has to unite all wings of the party if he is going to be able to govern. Therefore, he will absolutely have to bring some in from the cold from that wing of the party - and Braverman is a strong likelihood.
No, I'd rather he didn't either but it's the sensible thing to do. It's politics. It does not mean he's got "no integrity" or is "not putting the country first". It means he is trying to be magnanimous and unite all wings of the parliamentary party to form a stable government.
You're simply trying to set up an attack line for what you know is probably inevitable and, if he doesn’t do what he asks, the party risks splitting so there's an unstable government and you can then call for an immediate GE and Labour due to the chaos. Either way, you've got a great spin angle.
I can read you like a book.
This is an internet message board, not Parliament. What any of us anonymous posters says on here is not of the slightest consequence to the national discourse. We’re all just people of no import who happen to have opinions. My opinion is you can’t claim to have integrity and be focused on the national interest and then put people like Braverman, Patel and Rees Mogg in your Cabinet. You disagree. That’s all that’s happening here. The world turns.
Bollocks. I will continue to call you out for those who do read the comments here who do have influence in the national discourse.
You're a transparent spinner. It's a shame because you'd be much more interesting if you engaged objectively with the subject, rather than seagulling in here two or three times a day, dropping your spin, and then leaving again.
Like you used to do before you went off the rails.
Off Topic
I suspect we all have opinions on fellow posters, most of which are best written and deleted without being sent. Advice I will now ignore.
My opinion of you is you are an enthusiastic Conservative, which is fine. However you do get very angry when anyone else expresses an opinion contrary to your own. It might be a coincidence but some of my "off topics" arrived after I disagreed with your posts. I have subsequently avoided you like the plague, as there is no point getting involved in confrontation on a board like this.
My opinion of Southham is he remains a fantastic poster (not least because I agree with almost everything he writes). Eradication of centrist posters might cheer you immensely. It would disappoint some of the rest of us.
Yes Casino_Royale can appear pleasant a lot of the time and then goes apeshit if someone takes a contrary view, with some really nasty personal invective. Especially from anyone to the left of him, even if they are in fact rather moderate. It's really quite odd.
However, when I was on the receiving end of something similar the other morning I reflected further and realised that it was because he stood to lose a stack of money and was very twitchy. Which I do understand. The last time I rolled the dice big time on spreads was nerve-wracking. I won big betting against the markets but it did make me irascible. That's my excuse for his intemperate morning rant.
Yes, I can get particularly stressed at election time and sometimes attack political opponents (it's usually about fear of the result, not the money, by the way) but that wasn't what Saturday morning was about.
We'll take this as a forewarning for 2024....
or 2023 ;-)
Yes. I think once we've had a stable few weeks the clamour for a GE next year will grow. Rishi doesn't really have a mandate, or at least, that's the way the Right have now memed it. I don't think they are going to make his life easy. Just imagine for example if he goes soft on defence spending etc. etc. etc.
Could he seriously hold out until 2024 without an election? I think it would get very very messy.
In some ways he could staunch all of this by saying right now that he will go to the country at some point next year. That might shut the Right up for a bit.
I'm confused by this bit of the header: ...Boris Johnson’s supporters [will] make governing impossible for the new Prime Minister ... even before you factor in the plethora [of] by elections set to occur thanks to Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list.
Doesn't the latter problem partially resolve the former? Or at least, mean it makes no difference?
Rishi is walking into a trap by avoiding a leadership vote. He will struggle with a reputation as a technocrat regardless. Dodging an election will not help that and will dog his premiership. He will be better if is Mordaunt gets her numbers and triggers a vote.
How is Rishi avoiding a leadership vote is if his mps overwhelming vote for him
I have just noticed Patel is now endorsing Rishi, yet another Boris supporter moving to him
Sky reporting from the City saying the bond markets have reacted favourably and are now at pre mini budget rates
This is good news no matter your politics
Feel like a trap for him.
It is certainly a risk if he becomes PM and leader by proclamation without a vote of MPs or members.
If he has more than 50% of the parliamentary party declaring for him, and polls showing he'd have won the members as well as being the preferred candidate of the general public, then it's all sort of academic.
Rishi is walking into a trap by avoiding a leadership vote. He will struggle with a reputation as a technocrat regardless. Dodging an election will not help that and will dog his premiership. He will be better if is Mordaunt gets her numbers and triggers a vote.
Balls. Complaining that there is a democratic deficit if the ghastly Con membership is cheated of a vote, is like claiming a democratic deficit if the CEO of Geest unilaterally decides on the next president of Guatemala without consulting the board of directors.
Sunak is literally the son-in-law of one of the world's wealthiest CEOs.
Surely no longer actually CEO? But a Modi-supporter. It could cause issues.
I’m pretty convinced Mordaunt is keeping in the race to avoid any late transfers to a spoiler candidate and to strengthen her position for a top cabinet spot.
Yes, I wouldn't necessarily rule out that she's done a deal with Rishi to stay in until the eleventh hour.
@janemerrick23: I got all six numbers on the national lottery last night, but I don't feel like it's the right time to win all that money, so I have ripped up my ticket
I can only assume Rishi hasn't offered her FS yet.
The criticism of her in Trade was that she was idle. "Part-time Penny" and all that. Would she put in the hard work necessary for Foreign Sec, especially at this time?
If Penny Mordaunt made it through to the members’ round tomorrow she’d win. No doubt about it. But that’s not what’s been decided. Prepare for mass defection of any remaining Tory members. Good news for @WilliamClouston and @TiceRichard
Mass defections from the membership to ReformUK or Farage is excellent news to those of us who want a one nation conservative party and not one influenced by the right and their little Englander attitudes
I’m pretty convinced Mordaunt is keeping in the race to avoid any late transfers to a spoiler candidate and to strengthen her position for a top cabinet spot.
Hard to see any other "spoiler candidate" getting 100 votes. I'm sure there's less than 100 prepared to throw away even a minuscule chance of advancement up the greasy pole by pissing off Rishi.
I’m pretty convinced Mordaunt is keeping in the race to avoid any late transfers to a spoiler candidate and to strengthen her position for a top cabinet spot.
Yes, that was my assumption.
She's the spoiler spoiler.
If she pulled out then it would leave a bit of a vacuum, and the 'wrong' person might attempt to occupy it.
Not convinced. 10% is a non-trivial proportion of the public even allowing for a misunderestimating of the question.
Sure 10% or whatever the true percentage is is too much, but plenty of surveys have shown that the UK is one of the countries with the lowest levels of racism and anti-immigrant sentiment. Is there still racism in the UK? Of course, and sexism, homophobia, misogyny, sectarianism and dozens of other prejudices, but in almost every area things are far better than they used to be even a few decades ago.
The Nick Robinson interview with Robert Chope showed that Boris is prepared to be a wrecking ball. The Tories '....rejection of Boris Johnson was such an act of betrayal that there would now have to be an election because Sunak had no legitimate support' says Chope.
That he is a piece of work goes without saying. The Party is ungovernable while Johnson's malign stink is lingering in the background
Its telling they see rejection of their chosen one as betrayal. It's a deeply weird personal fixation.
Penny Mordaunt’s team are briefing that they have the numbers this morning. I asked why we can’t see 100 names but they say a lot of the endorsements are remaining private. We’ll find out shortly I guess.
I'm confused by this bit of the header: ...Boris Johnson’s supporters [will] make governing impossible for the new Prime Minister ... even before you factor in the plethora [of] by elections set to occur thanks to Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list.
Doesn't the latter problem partially resolve the former? Or at least, mean it makes no difference?
I thought we'd had his list and there aren't any by-elections.
Rishi is walking into a trap by avoiding a leadership vote. He will struggle with a reputation as a technocrat regardless. Dodging an election will not help that and will dog his premiership. He will be better if is Mordaunt gets her numbers and triggers a vote.
How is Rishi avoiding a leadership vote is if his mps overwhelming vote for him
I have just noticed Patel is now endorsing Rishi, yet another Boris supporter moving to him
Sky reporting from the City saying the bond markets have reacted favourably and are now at pre mini budget rates
This is good news no matter your politics
Feel like a trap for him.
This seems to be the party line from Labourites, and it's completely detached from reality. There already was a competitive leadership contest, and Sunak won it with MPs and came a reasonably close (all things considered) second with members. Since the "winner" has now dropped out, he is the obvious candidate to take over.
Mordaunt, or (say) Wallace being crowned instead would indeed be a potential problem, a la Gordon Brown.
Rishi is walking into a trap by avoiding a leadership vote. He will struggle with a reputation as a technocrat regardless. Dodging an election will not help that and will dog his premiership. He will be better if is Mordaunt gets her numbers and triggers a vote.
How is Rishi avoiding a leadership vote is if his mps overwhelming vote for him
I have just noticed Patel is now endorsing Rishi, yet another Boris supporter moving to him
Sky reporting from the City saying the bond markets have reacted favourably and are now at pre mini budget rates
This is good news no matter your politics
Do you have a link for that Sky report? FT showing GGilt yields at 4.05%, down a bit from the 4.5% peak after the mini-budget but still well above the sub-3% before Truss was elected.
Penny Mordaunt’s team are briefing that they have the numbers this morning. I asked why we can’t see 100 names but they say a lot of the endorsements are remaining private. We’ll find out shortly I guess.
I’m pretty convinced Mordaunt is keeping in the race to avoid any late transfers to a spoiler candidate and to strengthen her position for a top cabinet spot.
Yes, that was my assumption.
She's the spoiler spoiler.
If she pulled out then it would leave a bit of a vacuum, and the 'wrong' person might attempt to occupy it.
That - and the option of putting her ahead of Johnson, should he scrape in - may well have been part of the plan from the beginning. The whole thing's been 'stop Johnson', and wisely, too.
I’m pretty convinced Mordaunt is keeping in the race to avoid any late transfers to a spoiler candidate and to strengthen her position for a top cabinet spot.
Yes, that was my assumption.
She's the spoiler spoiler.
If she pulled out then it would leave a bit of a vacuum, and the 'wrong' person might attempt to occupy it.
Who ?
All viable spoilers are backing Rishi (Braverman, Badenoch, Hunt, Gove, Cleverly, Zahawi)
We are left with Wallace but he's the "if noone else" candidate and doesn't want the job.
I’m pretty convinced Mordaunt is keeping in the race to avoid any late transfers to a spoiler candidate and to strengthen her position for a top cabinet spot.
Yes, I wouldn't necessarily rule out that she's done a deal with Rishi to stay in until the eleventh hour.
The 14th hour would be safer, in this case Pulling out by 1100 gives time for another nutter to pop up.
One more point re UC. If you earn between £7.4k and £16k and have a child at school and are in receipt of tax credits you get FSM. If you take on more hours, move LA, have another child, break up with a partner, or get a new one, etc., this is defined as a change of circumstances. Your tax credits claim is automatically closed, and you are put on UC. Thus losing FSM. And, in the majority of cases, worse off in other ways too. So. It's a disincentive to Labour mobility and fertility. As well as to working.
He'll just do what he thinks is right for the country and ignore the nutters. He can do nothing else and there is no advantage in trying to do otherwise. We should see a bounce in Tory poll ratings now. My guess is they will get back to within 20 points of Labour immediately. After that he could, given a fair wind, carry the Tories to an honourable defeat at the next GE, retaining something like 200/250 Parliamentary seats.
Will he get a fair wind? Well we know the economic storms that are coming but he should be able to ride them on the not unreasonable basis that they were not of his making and most other countries are suffering them too. The home-brewed political storms are a different matter though.
Boris's curmudgeonly withdrawal letter and the angry noises from The Defeated suggest that civil strife within The Party will continue. In that case I downgrade my prediction to less than 100 seats, and an Extinction Event far from possible. If the dissidents manage to contrive a 2023 GE, then the EE becomes more likely than not.
I didn't think the eliminaton of the Conservative Party was possible in my lifetime, but the fact it can even be sensibly discussed now is an indication of the pass things have come to.
Sunak’s disastrous budget earlier this year helped to create the conditions for where we are now. But I think you’re right that he is by far the Tories’ best hope. That said, if we end up with any of Patel, Braverman or Rees Mogg in the Cabinet, we’ll know Sunak is not putting the country first.
Sunak has to unite all wings of the party if he is going to be able to govern. Therefore, he will absolutely have to bring some in from the cold from that wing of the party - and Braverman is a strong likelihood.
No, I'd rather he didn't either but it's the sensible thing to do. It's politics. It does not mean he's got "no integrity" or is "not putting the country first". It means he is trying to be magnanimous and unite all wings of the parliamentary party to form a stable government.
You're simply trying to set up an attack line for what you know is probably inevitable and, if he doesn’t do what he asks, the party risks splitting so there's an unstable government and you can then call for an immediate GE and Labour due to the chaos. Either way, you've got a great spin angle.
I can read you like a book.
This is an internet message board, not Parliament. What any of us anonymous posters says on here is not of the slightest consequence to the national discourse. We’re all just people of no import who happen to have opinions. My opinion is you can’t claim to have integrity and be focused on the national interest and then put people like Braverman, Patel and Rees Mogg in your Cabinet. You disagree. That’s all that’s happening here. The world turns.
Bollocks. I will continue to call you out for those who do read the comments here who do have influence in the national discourse.
You're a transparent spinner. It's a shame because you'd be much more interesting if you engaged objectively with the subject, rather than seagulling in here two or three times a day, dropping your spin, and then leaving again.
Like you used to do before you went off the rails.
Off Topic
I suspect we all have opinions on fellow posters, most of which are best written and deleted without being sent. Advice I will now ignore.
My opinion of you is you are an enthusiastic Conservative, which is fine. However you do get very angry when anyone else expresses an opinion contrary to your own. It might be a coincidence but some of my "off topics" arrived after I disagreed with your posts. I have subsequently avoided you like the plague, as there is no point getting involved in confrontation on a board like this.
My opinion of Southham is he remains a fantastic poster (not least because I agree with almost everything he writes). Eradication of centrist posters might cheer you immensely. It would disappoint some of the rest of us.
Yes Casino_Royale can appear pleasant a lot of the time and then goes apeshit if someone takes a contrary view, with some really nasty personal invective. Especially from anyone to the left of him, even if they are in fact rather moderate. It's really quite odd.
However, when I was on the receiving end of something similar the other morning I reflected further and realised that it was because he stood to lose a stack of money and was very twitchy. Which I do understand. The last time I rolled the dice big time on spreads was nerve-wracking. I won big betting against the markets but it did make me irascible. That's my excuse for his intemperate morning rant.
Yes, I can get particularly stressed at election time and sometimes attack political opponents (it's usually about fear of the result, not the money, by the way) but that wasn't what Saturday morning was about.
We'll take this as a forewarning for 2024....
or 2023 ;-)
Yes. I think once we've had a stable few weeks the clamour for a GE next year will grow. Rishi doesn't really have a mandate, or at least, that's the way the Right have now memed it. I don't think they are going to make his life easy. Just imagine for example if he goes soft on defence spending etc. etc. etc.
Could he seriously hold out until 2024 without an election? I think it would get very very messy.
In some ways he could staunch all of this by saying right now that he will go to the country at some point next year. That might shut the Right up for a bit.
Declared interest: I've fluttered on 2023
I find the idea of a lack of mandate rather odd. When events happen during governments, do they need to seek a mandate to take action? See 9/11, covid, Falklands war etc. financial crash etc. A government relies on passing laws in parliament. If a leader can do that, they can govern. Some rather stupid calls a week or too back for the King to summon Starmer to form a government - plainly ridiculous as he was nowhere near a majority.
I’m pretty convinced Mordaunt is keeping in the race to avoid any late transfers to a spoiler candidate and to strengthen her position for a top cabinet spot.
Yes if she pulls out now the Johnsonite's will try to stand up another challenger, better to leave it as late as possible.
I can only assume Rishi hasn't offered her FS yet.
The criticism of her in Trade was that she was idle. "Part-time Penny" and all that. Would she put in the hard work necessary for Foreign Sec, especially at this time?
I've heard that but she doesn't strike me as a particularly lazy person.
Maybe she has lots of commitments and is a poor time manager? Don't know.
Rishi is walking into a trap by avoiding a leadership vote. He will struggle with a reputation as a technocrat regardless. Dodging an election will not help that and will dog his premiership. He will be better if is Mordaunt gets her numbers and triggers a vote.
I think that point would be stronger if we hasn't had nearly the same vote with the exact electorate 8 odd weeks ago which got it completely wrong.
I think that's a fair point. @Jonathan is right, in philosophical terms, but the reality is that the membership are batshit crazy – so handing them the decision would be an act of gross negligence.
"Half of all primary schools in England are trying to feed children in poverty who are ineligible for free school meals because their parents’ income does not meet the threshold. But there are 800,000 of them. It can be hard sometimes to grasp the scale of the problem through bare statistics, but vivid and haunting details can flesh them out. Children are eating school rubbers to line their stomachs and dull the ache and nausea of hunger. Others are bringing in empty lunchboxes then pretending to dine on their phantom food away from classmates, too ashamed to reveal that they have nothing to eat."
So, basically, if you are on any form of benefit, including in work benefits, you qualify. As these people clearly have at least 1 child they will qualify for those unless their income is quite considerable (the taper will not affect eligibility to FSM).
What I would accept is that there are dysfunctional families who do not prioritise feeding their kids over other wants but 800k? Nah.
The key there is "may" qualify.. If you are in work on UC you need to be on less than £7.4k pa.
Edit. Barty in there first.
Yes, I accept that point but if you earn more than £7.4k with a dependent child you will either get WTC or CTC which also qualify you unless your income is more than £16,190. Now, I would accept that is still not a lot of money and I wouldn't want to live on it but it shouldn't necessitate an empty lunch box for your child.
Ps. this conversation rather shows that the "simplification" of our benefit system through UC has not been an unqualified success.
I find it hard to believe that many people would allow their kids to go hungry if they had any option. There will be some, but it won't be the majority.
It's a stupid argument anyway. The cost of providing free school meals is not enormous. The potential costs to the economy in terms of both poor health and wasted potential of malnourished children is enormous.
Pragmatism ought to override the efforts to guess the motivation of parents who can't (or as someone argue, won't) properly feed their children.
Sunak will be a competent if uninspiring centrist, and grim domestic politics will be out-grimmed by even grimmer world politics. The appetite for profound political upheaval will be dulled. The Tories will unite under Sunak as he becomes their only possible chance of survival
Labour will still win in 24, but not by 30 points. Sunak will claw back support. He might even reduce Labour to NOM
Good morning everybody. In spite of all the frothing around Penny, it does feel as though there is a prospect of stability around number 10! For a while at least! I think that if that prospect isn't realised the country will very soon be in serious trouble. It does seem too as if we've seen the last, for a while of The Oaf! However is Liz Truss going to stay quietly on the back benches. Incidentally is she going to have a resignation honours list?
I’m pretty convinced Mordaunt is keeping in the race to avoid any late transfers to a spoiler candidate and to strengthen her position for a top cabinet spot.
Yes, that was my assumption.
She's the spoiler spoiler.
If she pulled out then it would leave a bit of a vacuum, and the 'wrong' person might attempt to occupy it.
Who ?
All viable spoilers are backing Rishi (Braverman, Badenoch, Hunt, Gove, Cleverly, Zahawi)
We are left with Wallace but he's the "if noone else" candidate and doesn't want the job.
Boris could always announce that 20 million people have rung him up and asked him to change his mind...
Anyway, if the plan is working, it might as well carry on until 14:00.
Rishi is walking into a trap by avoiding a leadership vote. He will struggle with a reputation as a technocrat regardless. Dodging an election will not help that and will dog his premiership. He will be better if is Mordaunt gets her numbers and triggers a vote.
Balls. Complaining that there is a democratic deficit if the ghastly Con membership is cheated of a vote, is like claiming a democratic deficit if the CEO of Geest unilaterally decides on the next president of Guatemala without consulting the board of directors.
Sunak is literally the son-in-law of one of the world's wealthiest CEOs.
I find the idea of a lack of mandate rather odd. When events happen during governments, do they need to seek a mandate to take action? See 9/11, covid, Falklands war etc. financial crash etc. A government relies on passing laws in parliament. If a leader can do that, they can govern. Some rather stupid calls a week or too back for the King to summon Starmer to form a government - plainly ridiculous as he was nowhere near a majority.
It's total nonsense. The only thing you can really complain about is when a government chooses to do the opposite of what's in their manifesto, and even then circumstances like you mention might necessitate change. There's only one real mandate, the support of the majority of the House of Commons be that as a government as a whole, or with confidence support from an opposition party.
Rishi is walking into a trap by avoiding a leadership vote. He will struggle with a reputation as a technocrat regardless. Dodging an election will not help that and will dog his premiership. He will be better if is Mordaunt gets her numbers and triggers a vote.
I think that point would be stronger if we hasn't had nearly the same vote with the exact electorate 8 odd weeks ago which got it completely wrong.
I think that's a fair point. @Jonathan is right, in philosophical terms, but the reality is that the membership are batshit crazy – so handing them the decision would be an act of gross negligence.
Rewriting history somewhat? The markets were stunned on minibudget day, suggesting that the main problem with Truss was not known to most people at the time of the leadership election.
Constitutionally it’s absolute b*llocks, as we all know. We elect MPs and Parliaments, not PMs although it is often not framed that way.
From my perspective I fail to see what the difference is between one change of PM in a Parliament and two - if your argument is that changing the PM destroys the mandate and necessitates a new GE, then surely that “break” happens the first time the PM is replaced. The second change is of no practical consequence.
Obviously whatever is correct constitutionally isn’t the same as what plays well in the country and I do think there is a strong desire right now to have an election - people do feel taken for fools with the Truss debacle and a new leader, and they want their say.
That said, if (big if) Rishi stabilises things in the coming months I suspect a lot of that immediate pressure will die away. If however things stay a bit hairy (and Tory MPs remain fractious) I would not be incredibly surprised to see a May/June or October 2023 election being mooted. Chances have to be pretty decent of a vote next year, therefore.
I'm confused by this bit of the header: ...Boris Johnson’s supporters [will] make governing impossible for the new Prime Minister ... even before you factor in the plethora [of] by elections set to occur thanks to Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list.
Doesn't the latter problem partially resolve the former? Or at least, mean it makes no difference?
I thought we'd had his list and there aren't any by-elections.
Presumably Loopy also gets a list?
We haven't. That was just the regular scheduled invitation to trough. We've got two more resignation honours lists to come. Johnson's have been held back. As an incentive* for his successor.
Rishi is walking into a trap by avoiding a leadership vote. He will struggle with a reputation as a technocrat regardless. Dodging an election will not help that and will dog his premiership. He will be better if is Mordaunt gets her numbers and triggers a vote.
Labour imposed former Chancellor Gordon Brown as PM by coronation of Labour MPs, no party members vote and no general election 15 years ago in 2007.
So they can have no complaints when Conservative MPs crown former Chancellor Rishi Sunak as PM at 2pm, with no party members vote and no general election
You have all been warned. Bet on 2023 accordingly.
You’re wrong. After all this dispiritingly bad - if entertaining - pantomime, voters will crave stability. Sunak has a reassuring persona. He’ll do OK. He is happily married without the whiff of scandal. He doesn’t even drink (a bad sign to my mind, but that’s my mind)
A grey man for grey times, but with more charm than Starmer
The clamour for a GE will subside and even if it doesn’t the Tories have a large majority and will take this to the wire in the hope of a polling/economic recovery
One thing I will also point out is the Trussterf**k has actually lanced the boil of the Canning “record” and made it a lot easier for a new PM to clear the bar of not being the shortest serving.
I think for many incoming PMs gambling so quickly on a GE has been a scary prospect given the chances of failing to meet that “record.”
Now that Liz has failed so spectacularly it will be much easier to avoid the wooden spoon, and I think we may actually see new PMs taking more risks in future.
Rishi is walking into a trap by avoiding a leadership vote. He will struggle with a reputation as a technocrat regardless. Dodging an election will not help that and will dog his premiership. He will be better if is Mordaunt gets her numbers and triggers a vote.
I think that point would be stronger if we hasn't had nearly the same vote with the exact electorate 8 odd weeks ago which got it completely wrong.
I think that's a fair point. @Jonathan is right, in philosophical terms, but the reality is that the membership are batshit crazy – so handing them the decision would be an act of gross negligence.
Rewriting history somewhat? The markets were stunned on minibudget day, suggesting that the main problem with Truss was not known to most people at the time of the leadership election.
Specifically the issue was that the markets didn't know that Truss would actually do what she'd told the membership she'd do. It was reasonable to assume she wouldn't since she didn't need them any more and you'd think she'd have known that what she'd said she'd do would be problematic in practice.
10% negative is a drop on your foot proportion of people. One in ten. Look around you everywhere you go/walk/play and one in ten of them dislikes an Asian as PM because they are Asian. A cricket/football/rugby team = at least one member. Your office of 200 people? 20 of them.
Maybe I'm having a glass half empty Monday morning but I find that quite depressing.
You need to compare it to other countries. This is probably the lowest figure you'd find anywhere. Sweden? 20% just voted for the Sweden Democrats.
Note too the UK will now be only the second G7 nation to have had a head of government from an ethnic minority, after the US which elected Obama in 2008 of course
Rishi is walking into a trap by avoiding a leadership vote. He will struggle with a reputation as a technocrat regardless. Dodging an election will not help that and will dog his premiership. He will be better if is Mordaunt gets her numbers and triggers a vote.
Labour imposed former Chancellor Gordon Brown as PM by coronation of Labour MPs, no party members vote and no general election 15 years ago in 2007.
So they can have no complaints when Conservative MPs crown former Chancellor Rishi Sunak as PM at 2pm, with no party members vote and no general election
Although of course, it had been known for a very considerable time that Gordon Brown was the heir presumptive.
10% negative is a drop on your foot proportion of people. One in ten. Look around you everywhere you go/walk/play and one in ten of them dislikes an Asian as PM because they are Asian. A cricket/football/rugby team = at least one member. Your office of 200 people? 20 of them.
Maybe I'm having a glass half empty Monday morning but I find that quite depressing.
Maybe I'm having a glass half empty Monday morning, but I find you quite depressing.
Comments
I thought she was the best candidate, who can campaign well, but she is untested and there's Frost's criticism of her ministerial performance in the background - yes, he has axes to grind, but people don't normally make criticisms up, just embellish and exaggerate already-known weaknesses
Penny Mordaunt’s team are briefing that they have the numbers this morning. I asked why we can’t see 100 names but they say a lot of the endorsements are remaining private. We’ll find out shortly I guess.
https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1584460535428681733
Oregon governor, 538 forecast:
GOP 41.6%
Dem 41.4%
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2022-election-forecast/governor/oregon/
Too many people close to her have been less-than-impressed for it not to stick. They say that she's not on her brief, is lazy, and surprisingly detached.
If she were a Thatcher-type she could have swept all before her months ago.
In fact it may even help them by redirecting all the required building elsewhere so Carlisle NIMBY residents see no new homes at all
If you are in work on UC you need to be on less than £7.4k pa.
Edit. Barty in there first.
The only practical way to do that is build Penrith North on the east side of the M6. Or Penrith west to the west of the M6. Neither would be an expansion of Penrith itself which topographically has hills and a flood plain restricting it.
If you're an ambitious politician, and you can get the nominations, and you have a decent chance with the members, obviously you give it a go. Britain can survive another week without a Prime Minister, and watching the Tory membership try to do an online vote will be funny.
People have cars. Absolutely no reason not to have out of town shopping. Out of town shopping means there's less traffic heading into town to fill your boot, so what's the problem with that?
Its funny how the NIMBY apologists love to bemoan people heading into town shopping, and love to bemoan people heading out of town shopping. Its like Sir Humphrey suggesting hospitals would be great, if they only didn't have any of those pesky patients to deal with.
Ps. this conversation rather shows that the "simplification" of our benefit system through UC has not been an unqualified success.
I have just noticed Patel is now endorsing Rishi, yet another Boris supporter moving to him
Sky reporting from the City saying the bond markets have reacted favourably and are now at pre mini budget rates
This is good news no matter your politics
As far as I was aware any new applicants (which increasingly inevitably will be anyone with young children) get UC and not WTC or CTC anymore.
Edit. Barty is much quicker to the loose ball today.
So why not just build a new town where everyone can access everything? NIMBY objectors rightly point to the chaos on their roads which cannot be expanded and the state of schools which councils can't expand and the state of hospitals which are in the wrong place for all the new people who can't get down the roads to get there.
Edit: Now Ben is ahead of me. I give up. Off to Toon to enjoy half-term!
We may get a new Prime Minister today. But how, I hear you ask, can @RishiSunak unite the Conservatives and reverse a 36-point deficit by 2024?
With exquisite timing, @jim_blagden
and I have a big report out today for @ukonward, based on a 10k @JLPartnersPolls poll. Thread: 1/14
https://twitter.com/Will_Tanner/status/1584443360651407360
If Penny Mordaunt made it through to the members’ round tomorrow she’d win. No doubt about it.
But that’s not what’s been decided.
Prepare for mass defection of any remaining Tory members. Good news for
@WilliamClouston and @TiceRichard
9:50 PM · Oct 23, 2022"
https://twitter.com/AllisonPearson/status/1584286119721463808
Could he seriously hold out until 2024 without an election? I think it would get very very messy.
In some ways he could staunch all of this by saying right now that he will go to the country at some point next year. That might shut the Right up for a bit.
Declared interest: I've fluttered on 2023
...Boris Johnson’s supporters [will] make governing impossible for the new Prime Minister ... even before you factor in the plethora [of] by elections set to occur thanks to Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list.
Doesn't the latter problem partially resolve the former? Or at least, mean it makes no difference?
If he has more than 50% of the parliamentary party declaring for him, and polls showing he'd have won the members as well as being the preferred candidate of the general public, then it's all sort of academic.
They'll enjoy that one over at Sunak HQ
https://mobile.twitter.com/hzeffman/status/1584465314003025920
But a Modi-supporter. It could cause issues.
She's the spoiler spoiler.
If she pulled out then it would leave a bit of a vacuum, and the 'wrong' person might attempt to occupy it.
Presumably Loopy also gets a list?
Mordaunt, or (say) Wallace being crowned instead would indeed be a potential problem, a la Gordon Brown.
https://markets.ft.com/data/bonds/tearsheet/summary?s=UK10YG
All viable spoilers are backing Rishi (Braverman, Badenoch, Hunt, Gove, Cleverly, Zahawi)
We are left with Wallace but he's the "if noone else" candidate and doesn't want the job.
If you earn between £7.4k and £16k and have a child at school and are in receipt of tax credits you get FSM.
If you take on more hours, move LA, have another child, break up with a partner, or get a new one, etc., this is defined as a change of circumstances.
Your tax credits claim is automatically closed, and you are put on UC.
Thus losing FSM.
And, in the majority of cases, worse off in other ways too.
So. It's a disincentive to Labour mobility and fertility. As well as to working.
The main issue though is the need for our leaders to be seen to be both competent and broadly trustworthy.
That's why it could never have been Boris again. Even those which like him, don't trust him, and they know he's lazy.
Maybe she has lots of commitments and is a poor time manager? Don't know.
The cost of providing free school meals is not enormous. The potential costs to the economy in terms of both poor health and wasted potential of malnourished children is enormous.
Pragmatism ought to override the efforts to guess the motivation of parents who can't (or as someone argue, won't) properly feed their children.
I don't see it being a problem with the members.
Sunak will be a competent if uninspiring centrist, and grim domestic politics will be out-grimmed by even grimmer world politics. The appetite for profound political upheaval will be dulled. The Tories will unite under Sunak as he becomes their only possible chance of survival
Labour will still win in 24, but not by 30 points. Sunak will claw back support. He might even reduce Labour to NOM
I think that if that prospect isn't realised the country will very soon be in serious trouble. It does seem too as if we've seen the last, for a while of The Oaf! However is Liz Truss going to stay quietly on the back benches.
Incidentally is she going to have a resignation honours list?
Anyway, if the plan is working, it might as well carry on until 14:00.
You have all been warned. Bet on 2023 accordingly.
Constitutionally it’s absolute b*llocks, as we all know. We elect MPs and Parliaments, not PMs although it is often not framed that way.
From my perspective I fail to see what the difference is between one change of PM in a Parliament and two - if your argument is that changing the PM destroys the mandate and necessitates a new GE, then surely that “break” happens the first time the PM is replaced. The second change is of no practical consequence.
Obviously whatever is correct constitutionally isn’t the same as what plays well in the country and I do think there is a strong desire right now to have an election - people do feel taken for fools with the Truss debacle and a new leader, and they want their say.
That said, if (big if) Rishi stabilises things in the coming months I suspect a lot of that immediate pressure will die away. If however things stay a bit hairy (and Tory MPs remain fractious) I would not be incredibly surprised to see a May/June or October 2023 election being mooted. Chances have to be pretty decent of a vote next year, therefore.
I reckon he's stolen Leon's negative oracular skills.
That was just the regular scheduled invitation to trough.
We've got two more resignation honours lists to come.
Johnson's have been held back. As an incentive* for his successor.
* Threat.
So they can have no complaints when Conservative MPs crown former Chancellor Rishi Sunak as PM at 2pm, with no party members vote and no general election
A grey man for grey times, but with more charm than Starmer
The clamour for a GE will subside and even if it doesn’t the Tories have a large majority and will take this to the wire in the hope of a polling/economic recovery
I think for many incoming PMs gambling so quickly on a GE has been a scary prospect given the chances of failing to meet that “record.”
Now that Liz has failed so spectacularly it will be much easier to avoid the wooden spoon, and I think we may actually see new PMs taking more risks in future.