It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Labour isn't way ahead in the polls because the Tories are insufficiently populist and right wing.
The Tories are living a weird double-existence of sounding populist and right wing - thereby infuriating the media and the commentariat - while not actually doing anything right-wing - thereby alienating their own voters.
An unelected Etonian holding one of the great offices of state, and a (near) billionaire in number 10. In the middle of a cost of living crisis.
The optics, as they say, are not good.
A Wykehamist as PM, an Etonian as Foreign Secretary and a Carthusian as Chancellor, all educated at Oxford for university (only Cleverly not major public school, only minor private school and non Oxbridge).
Looks like the highest concentration of top public/private school and Oxford alumni in the great offices of state since Macmillan's cabinet, with some new money too from Sunak's wife's family
Yeah, the Tories can fuck off, after this. The more I think about it the angrier I get
I wasn’t gonna vote for them anyway, but now I’m not going to vote for them with real venom. Tossers
I love it when the oiks get upset.
And yet all the poshos who write for the snobby so-called “Spectator” magazine ALSO seem really angry
Oiks don't need to explain themselves, but it would be helpful to have an insight into what is the underlying political philosophy and worldview of the Spectator, in its current extraordinary and muddled manifestation.
I thought it was poshos who never deigned to explain themselves?>
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Polling has shown that chasing the nutter vote doesn’t deliver for Sunak. Winning back a few centrist voters in the blue wall might be a better strategy.
I think this sums up Sunak's issue:
Sunak has always had a vibe problem, that he's pretty right-wing but centrist-coded.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Polling has shown that chasing the nutter vote doesn’t deliver for Sunak. Winning back a few centrist voters in the blue wall might be a better strategy.
Indeed, chasing the 'ban smoking so that in future 33 year olds will be able to buy cigs but 32 year olds won't be' fans isn't working.
The problem is the centre; change that and there is a chance of more than 25% in the polls. At present, I don't see how Sunak exceeds that by much.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Labour isn't way ahead in the polls because the Tories are insufficiently populist and right wing.
The Tories are living a weird double-existence of sounding populist and right wing - thereby infuriating the media and the commentariat - while not actually doing anything right-wing - thereby alienating their own voters.
Well Barclay and Braverman at least now have the bonus of not being directly responsible for defeat if Sunak's cabinet loses the next general election and they then make bids to be Leader of the Opposition
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Polling has shown that chasing the nutter vote doesn’t deliver for Sunak. Winning back a few centrist voters in the blue wall might be a better strategy.
Pearson is increasingly deranged. At the Cenotaph on Saturday were pig-shit thick football hooligans who had a day off because Chelsea and West Ham weren't playing. While she is probably right that they supported Suella, in the main, I'm not sure that's a great point in Braverman's favour.
Although @Cyclefree has suggested the Judge suspend the inquiry, so that prosecutions might follow, I do want to see Paula Venells facing the music. No doubt "lessons have been learned", and "I think I'm the real victim here", will feature in her evidence.
I think there is going to be a concerted attempt by significant numbers of Tory MPs to get Rishi Sunak out straight after Christmas and then bounce into a general election as early as April under a new Tory PM.
Well at least then it will keep costs down as the remaining Tory MPs will be able all share a taxi.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Polling has shown that chasing the nutter vote doesn’t deliver for Sunak. Moving a few voters in the blue wall might be a better strategy.
With due respect you’re not in the UK. You don’t sense the mood
Sunak was going to lose the election anyway. All he’s done is bring forward the inevitable Tory civil war so that the defeat might be even worse than anticipated. Genius, not
Maybe that was his intention in some honourable masochistic good-for-the-party way? I doubt it. I think this is another cretinous decision from a flailing and rubbish politician who doesn’t know what to do
I’m happy to concede now - after two years - that I can’t read the mood now. I’m losing a bit of interest in UK politics which seems almost comically parochial and facile, without picking up a commensurate interest in US politics.
You may have a point about Tory civil wars. In personal view, Sunak would be well rid of all the extreme loons - and their hangers-on at GB News, the Mail, and the Telegraph - who have toileted the Conservatives since at least 2016.
There’s little evidence that extreme woke-frothing has any sustainable appeal in the real world, even if it works as short-term clickbait.
It’s the economy, stupid, etc. Or rather, the cozzie-livs.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Labour isn't way ahead in the polls because the Tories are insufficiently populist and right wing.
The Tories are living a weird double-existence of sounding populist and right wing - thereby infuriating the media and the commentariat - while not actually doing anything right-wing - thereby alienating their own voters.
More fundamentally, there’s a huge overlap between being “populist and right wing” and being in denial of reality and essentially incompetent. Which is a big part of why they have got nothing worthwhile done since Brexit, viewing everything through the prism of ideology.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Labour isn't way ahead in the polls because the Tories are insufficiently populist and right wing.
The Tories are living a weird double-existence of sounding populist and right wing - thereby infuriating the media and the commentariat - while not actually doing anything right-wing - thereby alienating their own voters.
13 wasted years of Conservatism, in my opinion.
And each and every time we've buckled to the chattering classes, the result has been worse than if we'd have stuck to our instincts.
The only time we didn't, and ditched a leader over it - Brexit - the result was a resounding groundswell of support.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Labour isn't way ahead in the polls because the Tories are insufficiently populist and right wing.
The Tories are living a weird double-existence of sounding populist and right wing - thereby infuriating the media and the commentariat - while not actually doing anything right-wing - thereby alienating their own voters.
I think that's correct. They talk right, but act left, which pleases nobody.
Well Barclay and Braverman at least now have the bonus of not being directly responsible for defeat if Sunak's cabinet loses the next general election and they then make bids to be Leader of the Opposition
Theres a bit of now or never for a reshaping of the right in the UK. Sunak loses big and the Tories die and a new party takes its place without the baggage.
Superhero film The Marvels made just $47m (£38m) in its first weekend, in the US, making it the Marvel Cinematic Universe's lowest opening. In contrast, Avengers: Endgame made box office history in 2019 by taking a record-breaking $1.2bn (£980m) in global ticket sales in its opening run.
Ouch....
Whilst I am well aware of The Marvels' AAARGH! numbers, you are not comparing like-to-like
Domestic (US&Canada) gross for first weekend
The Marvels: $47,000,000
Avengers:Endgame: $357,115,007
At a guess, given the international numbers and a slightly better decay curve than you'd expect, it'll probably make its net budget back so they'll be able to claim a nominal success. But that ignores the cost of promotion etc so it'll probably end up losing what, 100-200million? In pre-Covid times they'd have made up the loss with another film, but still-low post-Covid attendance and superhero fatigue in general and MCU fatigue in particular makes it bad news for Marvel. Everything has been postponed to 2015 (except for Deadpool 3) while they work out what, if anything, they can do to fix this.
My problem with the MCU is that there's too much of it. I didn't mind going to the cinema a couple of times a year to watch a film set in the universe. I quite liked it when Agents of Shield came on the TV, and Agent Carter was cool.
But then the last series of AoS was not shown on Channel 4 (I think because they wanted it on Disney+), so I never watched it. And they produced many other series as well, and worse; the "Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" was needed to understand some of the minor stuff that was going on in GoG3.
They want to do this to make me get Disney+. The problem for them is it just pushes me away from watching anything Marvel, including at the cinema.
Its a huge problem across Disney, this carpet bombing of movies / shows from the IP they own. How many Star Wars shows have been made and are in the pipeline. Nobody cares now. Its not special. The quality isn't there, its all filler.
In fact the best one was Andor, and they kept that in the can for 2 years as they didn't think it fitted with the brand.
Its the opposite of the golden age of telly when HBO were making the classics.
I can't remember who said it, but Star Wars needs a Star Trek (story of the week) type series to see what type of stories could work in that Universe.
People are bored with superheroes, bored with Star Wars, bored with Disney live action remakes of cartoons, and bored with endless sequels and reboots. Brilliant CGI can't make up for bad plots, wooden characterisation, and left wing preaching.
One additional point, we are so spoiled by CGI now that it isn't the spectacle it once was and if it is off at all, even in tv shows, its gets a terrible reception. In fact the best VFX work is the stuff you never even realised was VFX e.g a load of scenes in the last James Bond, never existed, but you can't tell which ones those are...in fact the one you probably think was VFX (the motorbike jump) was 100% real.
In my view, almost everything turns on the quality of the script, and the plotting.
Any number of old films and TV shows with rudimentary special effects are still immense fun to watch. A good script will carry a film. A bad script will sink it.
The trouble is that far too many writers now think a script must be good because of the social justice message it carries.
They live in a bubble, and no-one likes being preached at.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Labour isn't way ahead in the polls because the Tories are insufficiently populist and right wing.
The Tories are living a weird double-existence of sounding populist and right wing - thereby infuriating the media and the commentariat - while not actually doing anything right-wing - thereby alienating their own voters.
I think that's correct. They talk right, but act left, which pleases nobody.
I wasn’t even aware that the Marvels opened this weekend. Not surprised that it had bombed. The audience for this guff is mostly teenage boys and they don’t want to see a woman-led superhero film, unless the woman is foxily bad-ass.
The ill-fated Jodie Whittaker-as-Doctor moment is another example.
Killers of the Flower Moon was PACKED on Friday night, and the trailer for Ferrari looks sensational.
Nah. Jodie Whittaker was just bloody awful writing and trying to make a mark by changing practially everything about the previous 57 years of Dr Who lore.
I was really looking forward to Whittaker as the Doctor as I think she is a cracking actress. But even she could do nothing with the dross they wrote for her, which to be fair had started back in the Capaldi era.
I was really, really annoyed that they so badly messed up what should have been a seminal moment in Science Fiction TV.
I got annoyed with the Whittaker era DW because it seemed clearly targeted at an American audience, to the point it looked like it came out of the American BBC production team. First few episodes revolved around guns and American civil rights era and a Trumpy figure - and they were all dealt with in a very American fashion; none of the themes were typical DW themes (not that it must always hold on to that kind of model). I was also hoping to like that series - I wasn't a big fan of the Capaldi era but I always liked Jodie Whittaker.
Indeed. The idiot misogynists always talk about women and woke but it was none of that. Dr Who has been 'Woke' in their terms all the way back to Jon Pertwee in the 70s. This was just poorly written, lacked tension, pacing, coherence and that indefinable wierd Britishness that had been so key to success over the decades. There were no genuine scares because to have proper scares (a la Blink or Are you my Mummy) you have to actually care about the characters and that is all down to writing.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Polling has shown that chasing the nutter vote doesn’t deliver for Sunak. Moving a few voters in the blue wall might be a better strategy.
With due respect you’re not in the UK. You don’t sense the mood
Sunak was going to lose the election anyway. All he’s done is bring forward the inevitable Tory civil war so that the defeat might be even worse than anticipated. Genius, not
Maybe that was his intention in some honourable masochistic good-for-the-party way? I doubt it. I think this is another cretinous decision from a flailing and rubbish politician who doesn’t know what to do
I’m happy to concede now - after two years - that I can’t read the mood now. I’m losing a bit of interest in UK politics which seems almost comically parochial and facile, without picking up a commensurate interest in US politics.
You may have a point about Tory civil wars. In personal view, Sunak would be well rid of all the extreme loons - and their hangers-on at GB News, the Mail, and the Telegraph - who have toileted the Conservatives since at least 2016.
There’s little evidence that extreme woke-frothing has any sustainable appeal in the real world, even if it works as short-term clickbait.
It’s the economy, stupid, etc. Or rather, the cozzie-livs.
It’s quite something to claim that “woke-frothing has no sustainable appeal” when you’re living in a country which might just RE-elect DONALD TRUMP
Although @Cyclefree has suggested the Judge suspend the inquiry, so that prosecutions might follow, I do want to see Paula Venells facing the music. No doubt "lessons have been learned", and "I think I'm the real victim here", will feature in her evidence.
Listening to the first one, which is Episode 13, it seems to be classic project mismanagement / politics (client kept at arms' length so inadequate quality supervision) followed by 'Fijitsu is an important investor to the UK so we'd better accept it' pandering to the supplier at the very highest political level.
I can't call Paula Vennells' reaction - we'll have to see.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
The consensus from the various journalists etc being interviewed on R5 and TWAO was that this was a clever or canny move by Sunak. Not something heard, well, ever actually. Almost no dissenting voices.
At the risk of doxing myself as the true Spartacus even the fact that the BBC seems to like it doesn't persuade me that it is a bad idea.
Braverman was a deeply unpleasant menace who has been damaging the government almost from the day she was reappointed. Cleverly may keep similar policies but will very definitely not have the same tone as her. The government will start to sound more like a government and less like a Trump rally.
Cameron is more skilled as a politician than literally anyone in the existing cabinet (admittedly an extremely low bar). I hope he can help create a more coherent voice that has some idea of why it is there.
Superhero film The Marvels made just $47m (£38m) in its first weekend, in the US, making it the Marvel Cinematic Universe's lowest opening. In contrast, Avengers: Endgame made box office history in 2019 by taking a record-breaking $1.2bn (£980m) in global ticket sales in its opening run.
Ouch....
Whilst I am well aware of The Marvels' AAARGH! numbers, you are not comparing like-to-like
Domestic (US&Canada) gross for first weekend
The Marvels: $47,000,000
Avengers:Endgame: $357,115,007
At a guess, given the international numbers and a slightly better decay curve than you'd expect, it'll probably make its net budget back so they'll be able to claim a nominal success. But that ignores the cost of promotion etc so it'll probably end up losing what, 100-200million? In pre-Covid times they'd have made up the loss with another film, but still-low post-Covid attendance and superhero fatigue in general and MCU fatigue in particular makes it bad news for Marvel. Everything has been postponed to 2015 (except for Deadpool 3) while they work out what, if anything, they can do to fix this.
My problem with the MCU is that there's too much of it. I didn't mind going to the cinema a couple of times a year to watch a film set in the universe. I quite liked it when Agents of Shield came on the TV, and Agent Carter was cool.
But then the last series of AoS was not shown on Channel 4 (I think because they wanted it on Disney+), so I never watched it. And they produced many other series as well, and worse; the "Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" was needed to understand some of the minor stuff that was going on in GoG3.
They want to do this to make me get Disney+. The problem for them is it just pushes me away from watching anything Marvel, including at the cinema.
Its a huge problem across Disney, this carpet bombing of movies / shows from the IP they own. How many Star Wars shows have been made and are in the pipeline. Nobody cares now. Its not special. The quality isn't there, its all filler.
In fact the best one was Andor, and they kept that in the can for 2 years as they didn't think it fitted with the brand.
Its the opposite of the golden age of telly when HBO were making the classics.
I can't remember who said it, but Star Wars needs a Star Trek (story of the week) type series to see what type of stories could work in that Universe.
People are bored with superheroes, bored with Star Wars, bored with Disney live action remakes of cartoons, and bored with endless sequels and reboots. Brilliant CGI can't make up for bad plots, wooden characterisation, and left wing preaching.
One additional point, we are so spoiled by CGI now that it isn't the spectacle it once was and if it is off at all, even in tv shows, its gets a terrible reception. In fact the best VFX work is the stuff you never even realised was VFX e.g a load of scenes in the last James Bond, never existed, but you can't tell which ones those are...in fact the one you probably think was VFX (the motorbike jump) was 100% real.
In my view, almost everything turns on the quality of the script, and the plotting.
Any number of old films and TV shows with rudimentary special effects are still immense fun to watch. A good script will carry a film. A bad script will sink it.
The trouble is that far too many writers now think a script must be good because of the social justice message it carries.
They live in a bubble, and no-one likes being preached at.
Some people do like being preached at, to be fair. I mean, church attendance is certainly down, but it's not been a totally unsuccessful formula over the past couple of millennia.
Another thing Sunak has done is ensure the hostility of the Mail and the Telegraph - either overt or covert
They are not happy
Newspapers are not as influential as they were, but a PM in as perilous a position as Sunak can’t afford to alienate ANYONE
This is a big mistake not a clever masterstroke
Keeping her was a mistake as well though and would have caused different crises. The Tory party continually put their leaders in zugzwang.
Keeping her was quite sensible imo, though must have been annoying for her, when she was doing everything possible to be sacked bar throwing a bottle of piss at him during his conference speech.
I've been thinking about this a little. I like Cameron, and rate his skills. He's a good man, and competent - though flawed, as we all are. I'm glad to see him back.
And it's changed my chances of voting Conservative. From 0% to 0.000001%. The problem is that the party as a whole lacks ideas and a sense of purpose, and many of its MPs are tired and lacklustre. They are in need of a time out of power.
Now, a good leader, such as Major was, could change that slightly - delaying the inevitable. Perhaps Cameron could. But he's not leader, and his role as FS will not allow it.
I still want a GE ASAP. But this afternoon I'm a little happier that this government won't make things incredibly worse whilst we wait. They have another adult in the room.
Another thing Sunak has done is ensure the hostility of the Mail and the Telegraph - either overt or covert
They are not happy
Newspapers are not as influential as they were, but a PM in as perilous a position as Sunak can’t afford to alienate ANYONE
This is a big mistake not a clever masterstroke
Keeping her was a mistake as well though and would have caused different crises. The Tory party continually put their leaders in zugzwang.
Keeping her was quite sensible imo, though must have been annoying for her, when she was doing everything possible to be sacked bar throwing a bottle of piss at him during his conference speech.
I wasn’t even aware that the Marvels opened this weekend. Not surprised that it had bombed. The audience for this guff is mostly teenage boys and they don’t want to see a woman-led superhero film, unless the woman is foxily bad-ass.
The ill-fated Jodie Whittaker-as-Doctor moment is another example.
Killers of the Flower Moon was PACKED on Friday night, and the trailer for Ferrari looks sensational.
Nah. Jodie Whittaker was just bloody awful writing and trying to make a mark by changing practially everything about the previous 57 years of Dr Who lore.
I was really looking forward to Whittaker as the Doctor as I think she is a cracking actress. But even she could do nothing with the dross they wrote for her, which to be fair had started back in the Capaldi era.
I was really, really annoyed that they so badly messed up what should have been a seminal moment in Science Fiction TV.
I got annoyed with the Whittaker era DW because it seemed clearly targeted at an American audience, to the point it looked like it came out of the American BBC production team. First few episodes revolved around guns and American civil rights era and a Trumpy figure - and they were all dealt with in a very American fashion; none of the themes were typical DW themes (not that it must always hold on to that kind of model). I was also hoping to like that series - I wasn't a big fan of the Capaldi era but I always liked Jodie Whittaker.
Indeed. The idiot misogynists always talk about women and woke but it was none of that. Dr Who has been 'Woke' in their terms all the way back to Jon Pertwee in the 70s. This was just poorly written, lacked tension, pacing, coherence and that indefinable wierd Britishness that had been so key to success over the decades. There were no genuine scares because to have proper scares (a la Blink or Are you my Mummy) you have to actually care about the characters and that is all down to writing.
Poor writing, and the whole bloody Scooby gang because not even the producers believed in a lady doctor. But also Whittaker gabbled the dialogue so my foreign Whovian friends who'd loved JW in Broadchurch, could not understand a bloody word.
Another thing Sunak has done is ensure the hostility of the Mail and the Telegraph - either overt or covert
They are not happy
Newspapers are not as influential as they were, but a PM in as perilous a position as Sunak can’t afford to alienate ANYONE
This is a big mistake not a clever masterstroke
Keeping her was a mistake as well though and would have caused different crises. The Tory party continually put their leaders in zugzwang.
Keeping her was quite sensible imo, though must have been annoying for her, when she was doing everything possible to be sacked bar throwing a bottle of piss at him during his conference speech.
Your move now Suella...
She will now become a footnote, coming fourth or fifth in the race to become LOTO.
Well Barclay and Braverman at least now have the bonus of not being directly responsible for defeat if Sunak's cabinet loses the next general election and they then make bids to be Leader of the Opposition
Theres a bit of now or never for a reshaping of the right in the UK. Sunak loses big and the Tories die and a new party takes its place without the baggage.
Would need Reform to be over 20% for that though, not the 5-10% they are now on.
I see Barclay stays in Cabinet after all as new Environment Secretary, replacing Coffey.
As a mid ranked Cabinet Minister now could be a contender for next leader if the Tories lose power, the next William Hague or Ed Miliband?
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Polling has shown that chasing the nutter vote doesn’t deliver for Sunak. Moving a few voters in the blue wall might be a better strategy.
With due respect you’re not in the UK. You don’t sense the mood
Sunak was going to lose the election anyway. All he’s done is bring forward the inevitable Tory civil war so that the defeat might be even worse than anticipated. Genius, not
Maybe that was his intention in some honourable masochistic good-for-the-party way? I doubt it. I think this is another cretinous decision from a flailing and rubbish politician who doesn’t know what to do
I’m happy to concede now - after two years - that I can’t read the mood now. I’m losing a bit of interest in UK politics which seems almost comically parochial and facile, without picking up a commensurate interest in US politics.
You may have a point about Tory civil wars. In personal view, Sunak would be well rid of all the extreme loons - and their hangers-on at GB News, the Mail, and the Telegraph - who have toileted the Conservatives since at least 2016.
There’s little evidence that extreme woke-frothing has any sustainable appeal in the real world, even if it works as short-term clickbait.
It’s the economy, stupid, etc. Or rather, the cozzie-livs.
It’s quite something to claim that “woke-frothing has no sustainable appeal” when you’re living in a country which might just RE-elect DONALD TRUMP
The US and the UK are quite different. That’s one piece of wisdom I can give you for free.
Well Barclay and Braverman at least now have the bonus of not being directly responsible for defeat if Sunak's cabinet loses the next general election and they then make bids to be Leader of the Opposition
Theres a bit of now or never for a reshaping of the right in the UK. Sunak loses big and the Tories die and a new party takes its place without the baggage.
Question is- what does that look like?
Up to May, the Conservative tent managed to just about accommodate the metropolitan rich and the provincial grafter. It wasn't always comfortable, but basically as long as you weren't a Socialist you were OK.
That ability to meld different types of politics into one machine is one of the reasons the party has been so damn successful at winning.
Can any post-Conservative Party pull off the same feat? If not, tricky times like ahead.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Labour isn't way ahead in the polls because the Tories are insufficiently populist and right wing.
The Tories are living a weird double-existence of sounding populist and right wing - thereby infuriating the media and the commentariat - while not actually doing anything right-wing - thereby alienating their own voters.
More fundamentally, there’s a huge overlap between being “populist and right wing” and being in denial of reality and essentially incompetent. Which is a big part of why they have got nothing worthwhile done since Brexit, viewing everything through the prism of ideology.
Well perhaps, but I was thinking more of more traditional right wing concerns. I mean, if you were right-inclined, you might value any one or several of:
Low tax/low spend Low immigration Spending on the armed forces Security of production of things like energy, steel, etc. Owner occupation
None of which appear to be being pushed in a right-wing direction. And that’s before you get to cultural issues – which to put it mildly have not really moved in a conservative direction during the years the Conservatives have been in power.
I think there is going to be a concerted attempt by significant numbers of Tory MPs to get Rishi Sunak out straight after Christmas and then bounce into a general election as early as April under a new Tory PM.
Why wait until Christmas? get him out now, get Braverman in before she defects to Reclaim
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Labour isn't way ahead in the polls because the Tories are insufficiently populist and right wing.
The Tories are living a weird double-existence of sounding populist and right wing - thereby infuriating the media and the commentariat - while not actually doing anything right-wing - thereby alienating their own voters.
More fundamentally, there’s a huge overlap between being “populist and right wing” and being in denial of reality and essentially incompetent. Which is a big part of why they have got nothing worthwhile done since Brexit, viewing everything through the prism of ideology.
Well perhaps, but I was thinking more of more traditional right wing concerns. I mean, if you were right-inclined, you might value any one or several of:
Low tax/low spend Low immigration Spending on the armed forces Security of production of things like energy, steel, etc. Owner occupation
None of which appear to be being pushed in a right-wing direction. And that’s before you get to cultural issues – which to put it mildly have not really moved in a conservative direction during the years the Conservatives have been in power.
If you have low tax/low spend/low immigration you have lots of poor and poorly looked after pensioners, who would cease being natural Tory voters.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
The consensus from the various journalists etc being interviewed on R5 and TWAO was that this was a clever or canny move by Sunak. Not something heard, well, ever actually. Almost no dissenting voices.
At the risk of doxing myself as the true Spartacus even the fact that the BBC seems to like it doesn't persuade me that it is a bad idea.
Braverman was a deeply unpleasant menace who has been damaging the government almost from the day she was reappointed. Cleverly may keep similar policies but will very definitely not have the same tone as her. The government will start to sound more like a government and less like a Trump rally.
Cameron is more skilled as a politician than literally anyone in the existing cabinet (admittedly an extremely low bar). I hope he can help create a more coherent voice that has some idea of why it is there.
But Suella was totemic for Tories who want to see someone - anyone - fighting the Woke madness. Not because she’s great - she’s maladroit and foolish and needs to shape up - but because she seems to be the only one doing that. The only person with actual right wing beliefs who is - was - prepared to tell the guardian and the BBC to get stuffed
I’m not surprised the BBC is pleased
And add to that sacking - guaranteeing Tory infighting - the appointment of loser Cameron? You are unusual in your admiration. Polls show he’s deeply unpopular. Remainers hate him, many leavers scoff at him
So will this do anything good for the Tories? My bet is no. I don’t think it will shift the polls significantly, but what it will do is not good for Sunak: it exposes the huge rifts in Toryism right before the election
I see we are are at the stage of the electoral cycle where people write obituaries of the Tory Party like they did Labour in 2019, 2015, and 2010, and the Tories previously in 2005, 2001, and 1997. And before that, the Labour Party in 1992.
In ten years time the Tory Party will be resurgent and Labour will look tired. Outside of very rare circumstances (e.g. the rise of organised Labour and the change to the franchise killing the old Liberals), which aren’t currently on the cards, the cycle is just that: a cycle.
I wasn’t even aware that the Marvels opened this weekend. Not surprised that it had bombed. The audience for this guff is mostly teenage boys and they don’t want to see a woman-led superhero film, unless the woman is foxily bad-ass.
The ill-fated Jodie Whittaker-as-Doctor moment is another example.
Killers of the Flower Moon was PACKED on Friday night, and the trailer for Ferrari looks sensational.
Nah. Jodie Whittaker was just bloody awful writing and trying to make a mark by changing practially everything about the previous 57 years of Dr Who lore.
I was really looking forward to Whittaker as the Doctor as I think she is a cracking actress. But even she could do nothing with the dross they wrote for her, which to be fair had started back in the Capaldi era.
I was really, really annoyed that they so badly messed up what should have been a seminal moment in Science Fiction TV.
I got annoyed with the Whittaker era DW because it seemed clearly targeted at an American audience, to the point it looked like it came out of the American BBC production team. First few episodes revolved around guns and American civil rights era and a Trumpy figure - and they were all dealt with in a very American fashion; none of the themes were typical DW themes (not that it must always hold on to that kind of model). I was also hoping to like that series - I wasn't a big fan of the Capaldi era but I always liked Jodie Whittaker.
Indeed. The idiot misogynists always talk about women and woke but it was none of that. Dr Who has been 'Woke' in their terms all the way back to Jon Pertwee in the 70s. This was just poorly written, lacked tension, pacing, coherence and that indefinable wierd Britishness that had been so key to success over the decades. There were no genuine scares because to have proper scares (a la Blink or Are you my Mummy) you have to actually care about the characters and that is all down to writing.
Poor writing, and the whole bloody Scooby gang because not even the producers believed in a lady doctor. But also Whittaker gabbled the dialogue so my foreign Whovian friends who'd loved JW in Broadchurch, could not understand a bloody word.
I remember flicking it on one point and just being baffled at the fact she had at least three companions.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
The consensus from the various journalists etc being interviewed on R5 and TWAO was that this was a clever or canny move by Sunak. Not something heard, well, ever actually. Almost no dissenting voices.
At the risk of doxing myself as the true Spartacus even the fact that the BBC seems to like it doesn't persuade me that it is a bad idea.
Braverman was a deeply unpleasant menace who has been damaging the government almost from the day she was reappointed. Cleverly may keep similar policies but will very definitely not have the same tone as her. The government will start to sound more like a government and less like a Trump rally.
Cameron is more skilled as a politician than literally anyone in the existing cabinet (admittedly an extremely low bar). I hope he can help create a more coherent voice that has some idea of why it is there.
But Suella was totemic for Tories who want to see someone - anyone - fighting the Woke madness. Not because she’s great - she’s maladroit and foolish and needs to shape up - but because she seems to be the only one doing that. The only person with actual right wing beliefs who is - was - prepared to tell the guardian and the BBC to get stuffed
I’m not surprised the BBC is pleased
And add to that sacking - guaranteeing Tory infighting - the appointment of loser Cameron? You are unusual in your admiration. Polls show he’s deeply unpopular. Remainers hate him, many leavers scoff at him
So will this do anything good for the Tories? My bet is no. I don’t think it will shift the polls significantly, but what it will do is not good for Sunak: it exposes the huge rifts in Toryism right before the election
only if the right wing of the tory party get an audience..
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Polling has shown that chasing the nutter vote doesn’t deliver for Sunak. Moving a few voters in the blue wall might be a better strategy.
With due respect you’re not in the UK. You don’t sense the mood
Sunak was going to lose the election anyway. All he’s done is bring forward the inevitable Tory civil war so that the defeat might be even worse than anticipated. Genius, not
Maybe that was his intention in some honourable masochistic good-for-the-party way? I doubt it. I think this is another cretinous decision from a flailing and rubbish politician who doesn’t know what to do
I’m happy to concede now - after two years - that I can’t read the mood now. I’m losing a bit of interest in UK politics which seems almost comically parochial and facile, without picking up a commensurate interest in US politics.
You may have a point about Tory civil wars. In personal view, Sunak would be well rid of all the extreme loons - and their hangers-on at GB News, the Mail, and the Telegraph - who have toileted the Conservatives since at least 2016.
There’s little evidence that extreme woke-frothing has any sustainable appeal in the real world, even if it works as short-term clickbait.
It’s the economy, stupid, etc. Or rather, the cozzie-livs.
It’s quite something to claim that “woke-frothing has no sustainable appeal” when you’re living in a country which might just RE-elect DONALD TRUMP
The US and the UK are quite different. That’s one piece of wisdom I can give you for free.
Depends which parts, New England and most of the North East and much of the West coast of the US are probably closer culturally to the UK than the Deep South and Bible Belt
I've been thinking about this a little. I like Cameron, and rate his skills. He's a good man, and competent - though flawed, as we all are. I'm glad to see him back.
And it's changed my chances of voting Conservative. From 0% to 0.000001%. The problem is that the party as a whole lacks ideas and a sense of purpose, and many of its MPs are tired and lacklustre. They are in need of a time out of power.
Now, a good leader, such as Major was, could change that slightly - delaying the inevitable. Perhaps Cameron could. But he's not leader, and his role as FS will not allow it.
I still want a GE ASAP. But this afternoon I'm a little happier that this government won't make things incredibly worse whilst we wait. They have another adult in the room.
In terms of government, it's sensible. Suella has gone, just rejoice at that news. Having someone like Dave at the top table... Also good news.
But Dave himself? He's not an MP, which counts against him, and his return highlights the poor deck Rishi has to play with
And if I were a mid-rank Cabinet minister, knowing this was probably the last year of my government career, I'd be spitting feathers right now.
Well Barclay and Braverman at least now have the bonus of not being directly responsible for defeat if Sunak's cabinet loses the next general election and they then make bids to be Leader of the Opposition
Theres a bit of now or never for a reshaping of the right in the UK. Sunak loses big and the Tories die and a new party takes its place without the baggage.
Question is- what does that look like?
Up to May, the Conservative tent managed to just about accommodate the metropolitan rich and the provincial grafter. It wasn't always comfortable, but basically as long as you weren't a Socialist you were OK.
That ability to meld different types of politics into one machine is one of the reasons the party has been so damn successful at winning.
Can any post-Conservative Party pull off the same feat? If not, tricky times like ahead.
that sort of depends
the standard definition of left right no longer functions. Its time for a rethink
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
The consensus from the various journalists etc being interviewed on R5 and TWAO was that this was a clever or canny move by Sunak. Not something heard, well, ever actually. Almost no dissenting voices.
At the risk of doxing myself as the true Spartacus even the fact that the BBC seems to like it doesn't persuade me that it is a bad idea.
Braverman was a deeply unpleasant menace who has been damaging the government almost from the day she was reappointed. Cleverly may keep similar policies but will very definitely not have the same tone as her. The government will start to sound more like a government and less like a Trump rally.
Cameron is more skilled as a politician than literally anyone in the existing cabinet (admittedly an extremely low bar). I hope he can help create a more coherent voice that has some idea of why it is there.
But Suella was totemic for Tories who want to see someone - anyone - fighting the Woke madness. Not because she’s great - she’s maladroit and foolish and needs to shape up - but because she seems to be the only one doing that. The only person with actual right wing beliefs who is - was - prepared to tell the guardian and the BBC to get stuffed
I’m not surprised the BBC is pleased
And add to that sacking - guaranteeing Tory infighting - the appointment of loser Cameron? You are unusual in your admiration. Polls show he’s deeply unpopular. Remainers hate him, many leavers scoff at him
So will this do anything good for the Tories? My bet is no. I don’t think it will shift the polls significantly, but what it will do is not good for Sunak: it exposes the huge rifts in Toryism right before the election
only if the right wing of the tory party get an audience..
They will absolutely get an audience - in the Sunak-loathing Mail and Telegraph for a start
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Labour isn't way ahead in the polls because the Tories are insufficiently populist and right wing.
The Tories are living a weird double-existence of sounding populist and right wing - thereby infuriating the media and the commentariat - while not actually doing anything right-wing - thereby alienating their own voters.
More fundamentally, there’s a huge overlap between being “populist and right wing” and being in denial of reality and essentially incompetent. Which is a big part of why they have got nothing worthwhile done since Brexit, viewing everything through the prism of ideology.
Well perhaps, but I was thinking more of more traditional right wing concerns. I mean, if you were right-inclined, you might value any one or several of:
Low tax/low spend Low immigration Spending on the armed forces Security of production of things like energy, steel, etc. Owner occupation
None of which appear to be being pushed in a right-wing direction. And that’s before you get to cultural issues – which to put it mildly have not really moved in a conservative direction during the years the Conservatives have been in power.
If you have low tax/low spend/low immigration you have lots of poor and poorly looked after pensioners, who would cease being natural Tory voters.
Well I'd kind of suggest that's the problem: there's a perfectly coherent way of governing the country in a right-ish manner - even a popullist right-ish manner. But doing so isn't necessarily to the benefit of pensioners. In the olden days, the welfare of pensioners was more a left-wing concern, and their wellbeing corresponds rather more neatly to a left-wing agenda. Which is perhaps why we have a government which talks right but governs left.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
The consensus from the various journalists etc being interviewed on R5 and TWAO was that this was a clever or canny move by Sunak. Not something heard, well, ever actually. Almost no dissenting voices.
At the risk of doxing myself as the true Spartacus even the fact that the BBC seems to like it doesn't persuade me that it is a bad idea.
Braverman was a deeply unpleasant menace who has been damaging the government almost from the day she was reappointed. Cleverly may keep similar policies but will very definitely not have the same tone as her. The government will start to sound more like a government and less like a Trump rally.
Cameron is more skilled as a politician than literally anyone in the existing cabinet (admittedly an extremely low bar). I hope he can help create a more coherent voice that has some idea of why it is there.
But Suella was totemic for Tories who want to see someone - anyone - fighting the Woke madness. Not because she’s great - she’s maladroit and foolish and needs to shape up - but because she seems to be the only one doing that. The only person with actual right wing beliefs who is - was - prepared to tell the guardian and the BBC to get stuffed
I’m not surprised the BBC is pleased
And add to that sacking - guaranteeing Tory infighting - the appointment of loser Cameron? You are unusual in your admiration. Polls show he’s deeply unpopular. Remainers hate him, many leavers scoff at him
So will this do anything good for the Tories? My bet is no. I don’t think it will shift the polls significantly, but what it will do is not good for Sunak: it exposes the huge rifts in Toryism right before the election
Oddly enough, as you're about the only poster who ever mentions 'woke', I assume that you suffer from 'woke madness' ?
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
The consensus from the various journalists etc being interviewed on R5 and TWAO was that this was a clever or canny move by Sunak. Not something heard, well, ever actually. Almost no dissenting voices.
At the risk of doxing myself as the true Spartacus even the fact that the BBC seems to like it doesn't persuade me that it is a bad idea.
Braverman was a deeply unpleasant menace who has been damaging the government almost from the day she was reappointed. Cleverly may keep similar policies but will very definitely not have the same tone as her. The government will start to sound more like a government and less like a Trump rally.
Cameron is more skilled as a politician than literally anyone in the existing cabinet (admittedly an extremely low bar). I hope he can help create a more coherent voice that has some idea of why it is there.
But Suella was totemic for Tories who want to see someone - anyone - fighting the Woke madness. Not because she’s great - she’s maladroit and foolish and needs to shape up - but because she seems to be the only one doing that. The only person with actual right wing beliefs who is - was - prepared to tell the guardian and the BBC to get stuffed
I’m not surprised the BBC is pleased
And add to that sacking - guaranteeing Tory infighting - the appointment of loser Cameron? You are unusual in your admiration. Polls show he’s deeply unpopular. Remainers hate him, many leavers scoff at him
So will this do anything good for the Tories? My bet is no. I don’t think it will shift the polls significantly, but what it will do is not good for Sunak: it exposes the huge rifts in Toryism right before the election
I don't know if it will move the polls a lot, they have been very settled for a while. But I do think we have a better government this afternoon than we had this morning.
Can you imagine how Braverman would have responded as Home Secretary when the Supreme Court tells her not to be so absurd on Wednesday? How, having had a go at the police, she might have damaged respect for the rule of law and unilaterally have sought to commit the government to withdrawing from the ECHR? She was not fit for office. I am delighted she is gone.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
The consensus from the various journalists etc being interviewed on R5 and TWAO was that this was a clever or canny move by Sunak. Not something heard, well, ever actually. Almost no dissenting voices.
At the risk of doxing myself as the true Spartacus even the fact that the BBC seems to like it doesn't persuade me that it is a bad idea.
Braverman was a deeply unpleasant menace who has been damaging the government almost from the day she was reappointed. Cleverly may keep similar policies but will very definitely not have the same tone as her. The government will start to sound more like a government and less like a Trump rally.
Cameron is more skilled as a politician than literally anyone in the existing cabinet (admittedly an extremely low bar). I hope he can help create a more coherent voice that has some idea of why it is there.
But Suella was totemic for Tories who want to see someone - anyone - fighting the Woke madness. Not because she’s great - she’s maladroit and foolish and needs to shape up - but because she seems to be the only one doing that. The only person with actual right wing beliefs who is - was - prepared to tell the guardian and the BBC to get stuffed
I’m not surprised the BBC is pleased
And add to that sacking - guaranteeing Tory infighting - the appointment of loser Cameron? You are unusual in your admiration. Polls show he’s deeply unpopular. Remainers hate him, many leavers scoff at him
So will this do anything good for the Tories? My bet is no. I don’t think it will shift the polls significantly, but what it will do is not good for Sunak: it exposes the huge rifts in Toryism right before the election
I don't think "fighting the Woke madness" is as yet a mainstream concern.
Another thing Sunak has done is ensure the hostility of the Mail and the Telegraph - either overt or covert
They are not happy
Newspapers are not as influential as they were, but a PM in as perilous a position as Sunak can’t afford to alienate ANYONE
This is a big mistake not a clever masterstroke
Keeping her was a mistake as well though and would have caused different crises. The Tory party continually put their leaders in zugzwang.
Keeping her was quite sensible imo, though must have been annoying for her, when she was doing everything possible to be sacked bar throwing a bottle of piss at him during his conference speech.
Your move now Suella...
She will now become a footnote, coming fourth or fifth in the race to become LOTO.
She's already a footnote - she made Lewes: With Rishi: And is that Mark Harper?
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
The consensus from the various journalists etc being interviewed on R5 and TWAO was that this was a clever or canny move by Sunak. Not something heard, well, ever actually. Almost no dissenting voices.
At the risk of doxing myself as the true Spartacus even the fact that the BBC seems to like it doesn't persuade me that it is a bad idea.
Braverman was a deeply unpleasant menace who has been damaging the government almost from the day she was reappointed. Cleverly may keep similar policies but will very definitely not have the same tone as her. The government will start to sound more like a government and less like a Trump rally.
Cameron is more skilled as a politician than literally anyone in the existing cabinet (admittedly an extremely low bar). I hope he can help create a more coherent voice that has some idea of why it is there.
But Suella was totemic for Tories who want to see someone - anyone - fighting the Woke madness. Not because she’s great - she’s maladroit and foolish and needs to shape up - but because she seems to be the only one doing that. The only person with actual right wing beliefs who is - was - prepared to tell the guardian and the BBC to get stuffed
I’m not surprised the BBC is pleased
And add to that sacking - guaranteeing Tory infighting - the appointment of loser Cameron? You are unusual in your admiration. Polls show he’s deeply unpopular. Remainers hate him, many leavers scoff at him
So will this do anything good for the Tories? My bet is no. I don’t think it will shift the polls significantly, but what it will do is not good for Sunak: it exposes the huge rifts in Toryism right before the election
I don't know if it will move the polls a lot, they have been very settled for a while. But I do think we have a better government this afternoon than we had this morning.
Can you imagine how Braverman would have responded as Home Secretary when the Supreme Court tells her not to be so absurd on Wednesday? How, having had a go at the police, she might have damaged respect for the rule of law and unilaterally have sought to commit the government to withdrawing from the ECHR? She was not fit for office. I am delighted she is gone.
I’d be quite happy for us to leave the ECHR. It certainly wouldn’t drive me mad as it would you
But then you’re a lawyer and you like laws and courts. I like my flints. And speaking of which, I need a knap
Seriously, what do the Cameron jizzers think he's going to do? How is he going to erase the past thirteen years of Tory mankiness (which he bears a significant responsibility for) and bring on four more glorious years of Tory rule? The bloke messed up his prize piece and then scuttled off to spend more time with his wife's millions, what's he bring to the table now that the other three hundred and fifty elected tories are incapable of?
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Labour isn't way ahead in the polls because the Tories are insufficiently populist and right wing.
The Tories are living a weird double-existence of sounding populist and right wing - thereby infuriating the media and the commentariat - while not actually doing anything right-wing - thereby alienating their own voters.
Spot on summary. And sounding stridently Brexity, yet doing nothing on actual repealing of EU laws to gain any real post-Brexit advantage. I'm cynical enough to feel this is deliberate - I just don't think any Government could be that stupid.
An unelected Etonian holding one of the great offices of state, and a (near) billionaire in number 10. In the middle of a cost of living crisis.
The optics, as they say, are not good.
A Wykehamist as PM, an Etonian as Foreign Secretary and a Carthusian as Chancellor, all educated at Oxford for university (only Cleverly not major public school, only minor private school and non Oxbridge).
Looks like the highest concentration of top public/private school and Oxford alumni in the great offices of state since Macmillan's cabinet, with some new money too from Sunak's wife's family
Yeah, the Tories can fuck off, after this. The more I think about it the angrier I get
I wasn’t gonna vote for them anyway, but now I’m not going to vote for them with real venom. Tossers
I love it when the oiks get upset.
And yet all the poshos who write for the snobby so-called “Spectator” magazine ALSO seem really angry
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Cameron is a dickhead and a greedy dodgy one at that. Minimum qualification for cabinet is that you have been involved in some way in a financial scandal. The Tories are only interested in making cash , F**k the country
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Labour isn't way ahead in the polls because the Tories are insufficiently populist and right wing.
The Tories are living a weird double-existence of sounding populist and right wing - thereby infuriating the media and the commentariat - while not actually doing anything right-wing - thereby alienating their own voters.
I think that's correct. They talk right, but act left, which pleases nobody.
They talk right, but fail to do anything due to basic incompetence.
If you want to see 'talk right, but act left' keep watching Starmer
Superhero film The Marvels made just $47m (£38m) in its first weekend, in the US, making it the Marvel Cinematic Universe's lowest opening. In contrast, Avengers: Endgame made box office history in 2019 by taking a record-breaking $1.2bn (£980m) in global ticket sales in its opening run.
Ouch....
Whilst I am well aware of The Marvels' AAARGH! numbers, you are not comparing like-to-like
Domestic (US&Canada) gross for first weekend
The Marvels: $47,000,000
Avengers:Endgame: $357,115,007
At a guess, given the international numbers and a slightly better decay curve than you'd expect, it'll probably make its net budget back so they'll be able to claim a nominal success. But that ignores the cost of promotion etc so it'll probably end up losing what, 100-200million? In pre-Covid times they'd have made up the loss with another film, but still-low post-Covid attendance and superhero fatigue in general and MCU fatigue in particular makes it bad news for Marvel. Everything has been postponed to 2015 (except for Deadpool 3) while they work out what, if anything, they can do to fix this.
My problem with the MCU is that there's too much of it. I didn't mind going to the cinema a couple of times a year to watch a film set in the universe. I quite liked it when Agents of Shield came on the TV, and Agent Carter was cool.
But then the last series of AoS was not shown on Channel 4 (I think because they wanted it on Disney+), so I never watched it. And they produced many other series as well, and worse; the "Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" was needed to understand some of the minor stuff that was going on in GoG3.
They want to do this to make me get Disney+. The problem for them is it just pushes me away from watching anything Marvel, including at the cinema.
Its a huge problem across Disney, this carpet bombing of movies / shows from the IP they own. How many Star Wars shows have been made and are in the pipeline. Nobody cares now. Its not special. The quality isn't there, its all filler.
In fact the best one was Andor, and they kept that in the can for 2 years as they didn't think it fitted with the brand.
Its the opposite of the golden age of telly when HBO were making the classics.
I can't remember who said it, but Star Wars needs a Star Trek (story of the week) type series to see what type of stories could work in that Universe.
People are bored with superheroes, bored with Star Wars, bored with Disney live action remakes of cartoons, and bored with endless sequels and reboots. Brilliant CGI can't make up for bad plots, wooden characterisation, and left wing preaching.
One additional point, we are so spoiled by CGI now that it isn't the spectacle it once was and if it is off at all, even in tv shows, its gets a terrible reception. In fact the best VFX work is the stuff you never even realised was VFX e.g a load of scenes in the last James Bond, never existed, but you can't tell which ones those are...in fact the one you probably think was VFX (the motorbike jump) was 100% real.
In my view, almost everything turns on the quality of the script, and the plotting.
Any number of old films and TV shows with rudimentary special effects are still immense fun to watch. A good script will carry a film. A bad script will sink it.
The trouble is that far too many writers now think a script must be good because of the social justice message it carries.
They live in a bubble, and no-one likes being preached at.
Some people do like being preached at, to be fair. I mean, church attendance is certainly down, but it's not been a totally unsuccessful formula over the past couple of millennia.
Even then, there's a difference between a really gripping sermon, and one that bores you rigid (I've heard both types).
Suella and her politics are very popular with some people. Many of whom are Tory members and remain Tory voters. So cutting her off will provoke a reaction from those people. Suella and her politics were very unpopular with the majority of voters. Sacking her will be worth a couple of percentage points of share gained from the centre more than he loses to the hard right.
Ultimately there is another round of battle for the soul of the Tory Party (which had already defeated the Conservatives). They either slide further right and create a unified place for all the hard right voters, or they lose the hard right and go battling for the centre ground.
BJO bangs the drum for the hard left, but electorally they are no threat to Labour. The hard right cost Boris Johnson a lot of seats in 2019 (his majority should have been 3 figures were it not for BXP splitting the Brexit vote). In 2024 they will cost the Tories a great deal more seats. So he is damned whatever he does.
So its a question about hard choices. Does Sunak and a chunk of the Tory party really want to run on a platform of sink the migrants and steal the tents from homeless veterans? Or are they not that kind of person?
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
The consensus from the various journalists etc being interviewed on R5 and TWAO was that this was a clever or canny move by Sunak. Not something heard, well, ever actually. Almost no dissenting voices.
At the risk of doxing myself as the true Spartacus even the fact that the BBC seems to like it doesn't persuade me that it is a bad idea.
Braverman was a deeply unpleasant menace who has been damaging the government almost from the day she was reappointed. Cleverly may keep similar policies but will very definitely not have the same tone as her. The government will start to sound more like a government and less like a Trump rally.
Cameron is more skilled as a politician than literally anyone in the existing cabinet (admittedly an extremely low bar). I hope he can help create a more coherent voice that has some idea of why it is there.
But Suella was totemic for Tories who want to see someone - anyone - fighting the Woke madness. Not because she’s great - she’s maladroit and foolish and needs to shape up - but because she seems to be the only one doing that. The only person with actual right wing beliefs who is - was - prepared to tell the guardian and the BBC to get stuffed
I’m not surprised the BBC is pleased
And add to that sacking - guaranteeing Tory infighting - the appointment of loser Cameron? You are unusual in your admiration. Polls show he’s deeply unpopular. Remainers hate him, many leavers scoff at him
So will this do anything good for the Tories? My bet is no. I don’t think it will shift the polls significantly, but what it will do is not good for Sunak: it exposes the huge rifts in Toryism right before the election
Oddly enough, as you're about the only poster who ever mentions 'woke', I assume that you suffer from 'woke madness' ?
An unrelated anecdote on woke (to illustrate that Leon is not the only poster who mentions it ) : at a local secondary school - which when I last visited 18 months ago was as woke as could be: 75% of the material on the walls of corridors dealt with either sexuality, gender or race (valid concerns, but surely not worthy of 75% of any school's mental effort), it turns out that some opinions are actually quite old-fashioned: when the boys' football team's bus breaks down, they simply requisition the girls' netball team's bus, and the girl's netball team doesn't play; and when the boys' sports hall is out of action, they requisition the girls' sports hall, and girls' PE is cancelled. I don't know if this is because actually the woke is just for show, or because girls are no longer a concern of woke.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
The consensus from the various journalists etc being interviewed on R5 and TWAO was that this was a clever or canny move by Sunak. Not something heard, well, ever actually. Almost no dissenting voices.
At the risk of doxing myself as the true Spartacus even the fact that the BBC seems to like it doesn't persuade me that it is a bad idea.
Braverman was a deeply unpleasant menace who has been damaging the government almost from the day she was reappointed. Cleverly may keep similar policies but will very definitely not have the same tone as her. The government will start to sound more like a government and less like a Trump rally.
Cameron is more skilled as a politician than literally anyone in the existing cabinet (admittedly an extremely low bar). I hope he can help create a more coherent voice that has some idea of why it is there.
Agree (as usual). Quite impressed with that clever move. FS is the least political job. There is often consensus on policies and Cameron will be considered a serious appointment by foreign leaders. It might lose some votes to Reform helping Labour in the red wall, but might save seats in the blue wall at a cost to the LDs. Only criticism is not being able to find someone from his own MPs
But overall a good bit of lateral thinking by Rushi. I suspect getting support from both the likes of @TheScreamingEagles and @HYUFD .
Assuming the Sunk Ministry limps through to the election, this fresh turn of events is a bit suboptimal for the Wet wing of the party, as they will own the resounding defeat in full. There will be no posts here the day after blaming the defeat on Suella being vile etc. - no counter-narrative, just the statist, corporatist toads buggering things up for everyone.
It’s an important Minister of State post, visible to Number 10. You’re likely to either be seen to do well, and be promoted; or else the opposite and be replaced by the next prospect.
That tells you that the post matters, not that it doesn’t.
I think Sunak is essentially like Chris Patten as the Last Governor in Hong Kong after the 1995 elections.
He knows he's doomed but wants to leave with his head held high as a matter of honour, having done the right thing, and stuff the political consequences.
Superhero film The Marvels made just $47m (£38m) in its first weekend, in the US, making it the Marvel Cinematic Universe's lowest opening. In contrast, Avengers: Endgame made box office history in 2019 by taking a record-breaking $1.2bn (£980m) in global ticket sales in its opening run.
Ouch....
Whilst I am well aware of The Marvels' AAARGH! numbers, you are not comparing like-to-like
Domestic (US&Canada) gross for first weekend
The Marvels: $47,000,000
Avengers:Endgame: $357,115,007
At a guess, given the international numbers and a slightly better decay curve than you'd expect, it'll probably make its net budget back so they'll be able to claim a nominal success. But that ignores the cost of promotion etc so it'll probably end up losing what, 100-200million? In pre-Covid times they'd have made up the loss with another film, but still-low post-Covid attendance and superhero fatigue in general and MCU fatigue in particular makes it bad news for Marvel. Everything has been postponed to 2015 (except for Deadpool 3) while they work out what, if anything, they can do to fix this.
My problem with the MCU is that there's too much of it. I didn't mind going to the cinema a couple of times a year to watch a film set in the universe. I quite liked it when Agents of Shield came on the TV, and Agent Carter was cool.
But then the last series of AoS was not shown on Channel 4 (I think because they wanted it on Disney+), so I never watched it. And they produced many other series as well, and worse; the "Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" was needed to understand some of the minor stuff that was going on in GoG3.
They want to do this to make me get Disney+. The problem for them is it just pushes me away from watching anything Marvel, including at the cinema.
Its a huge problem across Disney, this carpet bombing of movies / shows from the IP they own. How many Star Wars shows have been made and are in the pipeline. Nobody cares now. Its not special. The quality isn't there, its all filler.
In fact the best one was Andor, and they kept that in the can for 2 years as they didn't think it fitted with the brand.
Its the opposite of the golden age of telly when HBO were making the classics.
I can't remember who said it, but Star Wars needs a Star Trek (story of the week) type series to see what type of stories could work in that Universe.
People are bored with superheroes, bored with Star Wars, bored with Disney live action remakes of cartoons, and bored with endless sequels and reboots. Brilliant CGI can't make up for bad plots, wooden characterisation, and left wing preaching.
One additional point, we are so spoiled by CGI now that it isn't the spectacle it once was and if it is off at all, even in tv shows, its gets a terrible reception. In fact the best VFX work is the stuff you never even realised was VFX e.g a load of scenes in the last James Bond, never existed, but you can't tell which ones those are...in fact the one you probably think was VFX (the motorbike jump) was 100% real.
In my view, almost everything turns on the quality of the script, and the plotting.
Any number of old films and TV shows with rudimentary special effects are still immense fun to watch. A good script will carry a film. A bad script will sink it.
The trouble is that far too many writers now think a script must be good because of the social justice message it carries.
They live in a bubble, and no-one likes being preached at.
There are plenty of films/books/shows that have had a strong social justice message, and are well worth watching. But, the story comes first, in each case.
Another thing Sunak has done is ensure the hostility of the Mail and the Telegraph - either overt or covert
They are not happy
Newspapers are not as influential as they were, but a PM in as perilous a position as Sunak can’t afford to alienate ANYONE
This is a big mistake not a clever masterstroke
Keeping her was a mistake as well though and would have caused different crises. The Tory party continually put their leaders in zugzwang.
Keeping her was quite sensible imo, though must have been annoying for her, when she was doing everything possible to be sacked bar throwing a bottle of piss at him during his conference speech.
Your move now Suella...
She will now become a footnote, coming fourth or fifth in the race to become LOTO.
She's already a footnote - she made Lewes: With Rishi: And is that Mark Harper?
Surprised to see the cancellation of HS2 being worthy of concern at Lewes. I agree with them, but I wouldn't have thought it high on anyone in Sussex's agenda.
Seriously, what do the Cameron jizzers think he's going to do? How is he going to erase the past thirteen years of Tory mankiness (which he bears a significant responsibility for) and bring on four more glorious years of Tory rule? The bloke messed up his prize piece and then scuttled off to spend more time with his wife's millions, what's he bring to the table now that the other three hundred and fifty elected tories are incapable of?
Another thing Sunak has done is ensure the hostility of the Mail and the Telegraph - either overt or covert
They are not happy
Newspapers are not as influential as they were, but a PM in as perilous a position as Sunak can’t afford to alienate ANYONE
This is a big mistake not a clever masterstroke
Keeping her was a mistake as well though and would have caused different crises. The Tory party continually put their leaders in zugzwang.
Keeping her was quite sensible imo, though must have been annoying for her, when she was doing everything possible to be sacked bar throwing a bottle of piss at him during his conference speech.
Your move now Suella...
She will now become a footnote, coming fourth or fifth in the race to become LOTO.
She's already a footnote - she made Lewes: With Rishi: And is that Mark Harper?
Surprised to see the cancellation of HS2 being worthy of concern at Lewes. I agree with them, but I wouldn't have thought it high on anyone in Sussex's agenda.
I think Sunak is essentially like Chris Patten as the Last Governor in Hong Kong after the 1995 elections.
He knows he's doomed but wants to leave with his head held high as a matter of honour, having done the right thing, and stuff the political consequences.
Why he has spent the last few months (since Uxbridge) obsessed with creating dividing lines and setting traps for Labour (i.e. selling off the HS2 land as fast he can) then?
Seriously, what do the Cameron jizzers think he's going to do? How is he going to erase the past thirteen years of Tory mankiness (which he bears a significant responsibility for) and bring on four more glorious years of Tory rule? The bloke messed up his prize piece and then scuttled off to spend more time with his wife's millions, what's he bring to the table now that the other three hundred and fifty elected tories are incapable of?
Baron Cameron of Brexit.
Not any more. The leader of the Remain campaign has now come out for Brexit (we will soon see him talking up its opportunities). His minions will soon follow.
Suella and her politics are very popular with some people. Many of whom are Tory members and remain Tory voters. So cutting her off will provoke a reaction from those people. Suella and her politics were very unpopular with the majority of voters. Sacking her will be worth a couple of percentage points of share gained from the centre more than he loses to the hard right.
Ultimately there is another round of battle for the soul of the Tory Party (which had already defeated the Conservatives). They either slide further right and create a unified place for all the hard right voters, or they lose the hard right and go battling for the centre ground.
BJO bangs the drum for the hard left, but electorally they are no threat to Labour. The hard right cost Boris Johnson a lot of seats in 2019 (his majority should have been 3 figures were it not for BXP splitting the Brexit vote). In 2024 they will cost the Tories a great deal more seats. So he is damned whatever he does.
So its a question about hard choices. Does Sunak and a chunk of the Tory party really want to run on a platform of sink the migrants and steal the tents from homeless veterans? Or are they not that kind of person?
Talking of homeless lifestyle choosers, one has been set on fire in an underpass in Birmingham suffering life changing injuries.
Clearly such an event is not Braverman's fault, but legitimising the homeless haters really is.
I think Sunak is essentially like Chris Patten as the Last Governor in Hong Kong after the 1995 elections.
He knows he's doomed but wants to leave with his head held high as a matter of honour, having done the right thing, and stuff the political consequences.
Why he has spent the last few months (since Uxbridge) obsessed with creating dividing lines and setting traps for Labour (i.e. selling off the HS2 land as fast he can) then?
Another thing Sunak has done is ensure the hostility of the Mail and the Telegraph - either overt or covert
They are not happy
Newspapers are not as influential as they were, but a PM in as perilous a position as Sunak can’t afford to alienate ANYONE
This is a big mistake not a clever masterstroke
Keeping her was a mistake as well though and would have caused different crises. The Tory party continually put their leaders in zugzwang.
Keeping her was quite sensible imo, though must have been annoying for her, when she was doing everything possible to be sacked bar throwing a bottle of piss at him during his conference speech.
Your move now Suella...
She will now become a footnote, coming fourth or fifth in the race to become LOTO.
She's already a footnote - she made Lewes: With Rishi: And is that Mark Harper?
Surprised to see the cancellation of HS2 being worthy of concern at Lewes. I agree with them, but I wouldn't have thought it high on anyone in Sussex's agenda.
We are all having to pay for it though
Oh, and I could craft a long-winded argument about why HS2 was in the interest of Sussex, not just of Manchester and London. I'm just surprised to see this opinion expressed in Sussex.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
The consensus from the various journalists etc being interviewed on R5 and TWAO was that this was a clever or canny move by Sunak. Not something heard, well, ever actually. Almost no dissenting voices.
At the risk of doxing myself as the true Spartacus even the fact that the BBC seems to like it doesn't persuade me that it is a bad idea.
Braverman was a deeply unpleasant menace who has been damaging the government almost from the day she was reappointed. Cleverly may keep similar policies but will very definitely not have the same tone as her. The government will start to sound more like a government and less like a Trump rally.
Cameron is more skilled as a politician than literally anyone in the existing cabinet (admittedly an extremely low bar). I hope he can help create a more coherent voice that has some idea of why it is there.
But Suella was totemic for Tories who want to see someone - anyone - fighting the Woke madness. Not because she’s great - she’s maladroit and foolish and needs to shape up - but because she seems to be the only one doing that. The only person with actual right wing beliefs who is - was - prepared to tell the guardian and the BBC to get stuffed
I’m not surprised the BBC is pleased
And add to that sacking - guaranteeing Tory infighting - the appointment of loser Cameron? You are unusual in your admiration. Polls show he’s deeply unpopular. Remainers hate him, many leavers scoff at him
So will this do anything good for the Tories? My bet is no. I don’t think it will shift the polls significantly, but what it will do is not good for Sunak: it exposes the huge rifts in Toryism right before the election
Oddly enough, as you're about the only poster who ever mentions 'woke', I assume that you suffer from 'woke madness' ?
An unrelated anecdote on woke (to illustrate that Leon is not the only poster who mentions it ) : at a local secondary school - which when I last visited 18 months ago was as woke as could be: 75% of the material on the walls of corridors dealt with either sexuality, gender or race (valid concerns, but surely not worthy of 75% of any school's mental effort), it turns out that some opinions are actually quite old-fashioned: when the boys' football team's bus breaks down, they simply requisition the girls' netball team's bus, and the girl's netball team doesn't play; and when the boys' sports hall is out of action, they requisition the girls' sports hall, and girls' PE is cancelled. I don't know if this is because actually the woke is just for show, or because girls are no longer a concern of woke.
It'll take more than a few years of woke to knock over something as strong and deep-rooted as the patriarchy.
So if the government wins the Rwanda case on Wednesday, Cameron is going to be one of the main politicians putting it into practice? I can't see that happening.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
The consensus from the various journalists etc being interviewed on R5 and TWAO was that this was a clever or canny move by Sunak. Not something heard, well, ever actually. Almost no dissenting voices.
At the risk of doxing myself as the true Spartacus even the fact that the BBC seems to like it doesn't persuade me that it is a bad idea.
Braverman was a deeply unpleasant menace who has been damaging the government almost from the day she was reappointed. Cleverly may keep similar policies but will very definitely not have the same tone as her. The government will start to sound more like a government and less like a Trump rally.
Cameron is more skilled as a politician than literally anyone in the existing cabinet (admittedly an extremely low bar). I hope he can help create a more coherent voice that has some idea of why it is there.
Agree (as usual). Quite impressed with that clever move. FS is the least political job. There is often consensus on policies and Cameron will be considered a serious appointment by foreign leaders. It might lose some votes to Reform helping Labour in the red wall, but might save seats in the blue wall at a cost to the LDs. Only criticism is not being able to find someone from his own MPs
But overall a good bit of lateral thinking by Rushi. I suspect getting support from both the likes of @TheScreamingEagles and @HYUFD .
On the other hand, if he'd dressed up as a chicken and jumped in the river he would still have had HYUFD's support.
Comments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_Under-Secretary_of_State_for_Housing
He'll be whooping it up in the vineyard in his garden.
Sunak has always had a vibe problem, that he's pretty right-wing but centrist-coded.
https://twitter.com/estwebber/status/1724052412552372342
The problem is the centre; change that and there is a chance of more than 25% in the polls. At present, I don't see how Sunak exceeds that by much.
You may have a point about Tory civil wars.
In personal view, Sunak would be well rid of all the extreme loons - and their hangers-on at GB News, the Mail, and the Telegraph - who have toileted the Conservatives since at least 2016.
There’s little evidence that extreme woke-frothing has any sustainable appeal in the real world, even if it works as short-term clickbait.
It’s the economy, stupid, etc.
Or rather, the cozzie-livs.
Blair-Brown: mean time about 1.4 years
The current lot (and partly coalition with the LDs, too, remember, so that makes things even worse for the Tories in a sense): 0.81
And each and every time we've buckled to the chattering classes, the result has been worse than if we'd have stuck to our instincts.
The only time we didn't, and ditched a leader over it - Brexit - the result was a resounding groundswell of support.
They live in a bubble, and no-one likes being preached at.
They are not happy
Newspapers are not as influential as they were, but a PM in as perilous a position as Sunak can’t afford to alienate ANYONE
This is a big mistake not a clever masterstroke
https://tinyurl.com/3b4uvhh8
I can't call Paula Vennells' reaction - we'll have to see.
At the risk of doxing myself as the true Spartacus even the fact that the BBC seems to like it doesn't persuade me that it is a bad idea.
Braverman was a deeply unpleasant menace who has been damaging the government almost from the day she was reappointed. Cleverly may keep similar policies but will very definitely not have the same tone as her. The government will start to sound more like a government and less like a Trump rally.
Cameron is more skilled as a politician than literally anyone in the existing cabinet (admittedly an extremely low bar). I hope he can help create a more coherent voice that has some idea of why it is there.
Your move now Suella...
And it's changed my chances of voting Conservative. From 0% to 0.000001%. The problem is that the party as a whole lacks ideas and a sense of purpose, and many of its MPs are tired and lacklustre. They are in need of a time out of power.
Now, a good leader, such as Major was, could change that slightly - delaying the inevitable. Perhaps Cameron could. But he's not leader, and his role as FS will not allow it.
I still want a GE ASAP. But this afternoon I'm a little happier that this government won't make things incredibly worse whilst we wait. They have another adult in the room.
I see Barclay stays in Cabinet after all as new Environment Secretary, replacing Coffey.
As a mid ranked Cabinet Minister now could be a contender for next leader if the Tories lose power, the next William Hague or Ed Miliband?
That’s one piece of wisdom I can give you for free.
Up to May, the Conservative tent managed to just about accommodate the metropolitan rich and the provincial grafter. It wasn't always comfortable, but basically as long as you weren't a Socialist you were OK.
That ability to meld different types of politics into one machine is one of the reasons the party has been so damn successful at winning.
Can any post-Conservative Party pull off the same feat? If not, tricky times like ahead.
Low tax/low spend
Low immigration
Spending on the armed forces
Security of production of things like energy, steel, etc.
Owner occupation
None of which appear to be being pushed in a right-wing direction. And that’s before you get to cultural issues – which to put it mildly have not really moved in a conservative direction during the years the Conservatives have been in power.
I’m not surprised the BBC is pleased
And add to that sacking - guaranteeing Tory infighting - the appointment of loser Cameron? You are unusual in your admiration. Polls show he’s deeply unpopular. Remainers hate him, many leavers scoff at him
So will this do anything good for the Tories? My bet is no. I don’t think it will shift the polls significantly, but what it will do is not good for Sunak: it exposes the huge rifts in Toryism right before the election
In ten years time the Tory Party will be resurgent and Labour will look tired. Outside of very rare circumstances (e.g. the rise of organised Labour and the change to the franchise killing the old Liberals), which aren’t currently on the cards, the cycle is just that: a cycle.
But Dave himself? He's not an MP, which counts against him, and his return highlights the poor deck Rishi has to play with
And if I were a mid-rank Cabinet minister, knowing this was probably the last year of my government career, I'd be spitting feathers right now.
the standard definition of left right no longer functions. Its time for a rethink
And these things do still matter
Can you imagine how Braverman would have responded as Home Secretary when the Supreme Court tells her not to be so absurd on Wednesday? How, having had a go at the police, she might have damaged respect for the rule of law and unilaterally have sought to commit the government to withdrawing from the ECHR? She was not fit for office. I am delighted she is gone.
With Rishi:
And is that Mark Harper?
But then you’re a lawyer and you like laws and courts. I like my flints. And speaking of which, I need a knap
Later
If you want to see 'talk right, but act left' keep watching Starmer
Suella and her politics are very popular with some people. Many of whom are Tory members and remain Tory voters. So cutting her off will provoke a reaction from those people.
Suella and her politics were very unpopular with the majority of voters. Sacking her will be worth a couple of percentage points of share gained from the centre more than he loses to the hard right.
Ultimately there is another round of battle for the soul of the Tory Party (which had already defeated the Conservatives). They either slide further right and create a unified place for all the hard right voters, or they lose the hard right and go battling for the centre ground.
BJO bangs the drum for the hard left, but electorally they are no threat to Labour. The hard right cost Boris Johnson a lot of seats in 2019 (his majority should have been 3 figures were it not for BXP splitting the Brexit vote). In 2024 they will cost the Tories a great deal more seats. So he is damned whatever he does.
So its a question about hard choices. Does Sunak and a chunk of the Tory party really want to run on a platform of sink the migrants and steal the tents from homeless veterans? Or are they not that kind of person?
I don't know if this is because actually the woke is just for show, or because girls are no longer a concern of woke.
But overall a good bit of lateral thinking by Rushi. I suspect getting support from both the likes of @TheScreamingEagles and @HYUFD .
That tells you that the post matters, not that it doesn’t.
He knows he's doomed but wants to leave with his head held high as a matter of honour, having done the right thing, and stuff the political consequences.
Britons think Rishi Sunak was right rather than wrong to sack Suella Braverman as home secretary
Right to sack her: 57% (44% of Con 2019 voters)
Wrong to sack her: 20% (39% of Con 2019 voters)
https://x.com/YouGov/status/1724071651829043487?s=20
Edit - he was clearly a sleeper agent all along!
Sunak needs to ensure leakage to them is offset by some of the 57% coming back to the Tories
Clearly such an event is not Braverman's fault, but legitimising the homeless haters really is.
Fortunately you get an episode every day !
FWIW, Cameron didn't agree with him on HS2.
Which demonstrates the problem.